By Gabriel Enogholase – Benin

Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) has disclosed that no fewer than 6 million electricity consumers in the country were on the estimated billings system.

The Manager Consumer Affairs, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Mr. Olisa Chukwuma, disclosed this in Benin on Wednesday,  in a Town Hall Meeting with electricity consumers and stakeholders.

The Town Hall Meeting with the theme. “Addressing Electricity Issues in the BEDC States”, was organized by Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), supported by  MacArthur Foundations aimed at addressing electricity issues in the states controlled by the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC ).

Mr. Chukwuma stated that the problem with metering was that in, ” those days of NEPA there were three centres where meters were procured- Lagos, Enugu, and Kaduna.

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So, when it was transformed to PHCN and finally to the present private ownership,(DISCOs)  metering continued to be a problem, though we cannot say the DISCOs were the cause, we can say they have not done enough to address the issue.

“When the DISCOs took over 2012, there were  5 million electricity consumers in Nigeria, but by 2019, we had a total of 10 million electricity consumers, and out of these numbers,6 million are on estimated billings system.

So what this implies is that  6 million consumers do not know the quantity of electricity they consume.

“The problem with estimated billings is that you cannot get an accurate billing with an estimated billings.

One thing about the electricity value chain is that everybody knows what he is giving out. The GENCOs know what they supply to Transmission companies and the Transmission companies know what the supply to the DISCOs, but the DISCOs don’t know what they supply to the consumer.”

“In 2019, We received a total of 650,000 complaints from consumers nationwide,55% was on metering and billings, what that means is that people are not satisfied with what they are receiving from DISCOs as regards to billings, and that is were the MAPs come in, the  MAPs were brought in to bridge the gap because the DISCOs argued that they don’t have enough funds to procure meters.”

The Coordinator of  Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN) Mr. Joseph Ekong, explained that the Town Hall Meeting was designed for Stakeholders to brainstorm, in other to find solutions to the problem in the electricity sector.

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He said, “the Town Hall Meeting is designed for Stakeholders to brainstorm, in order to find solutions to the problem in the electricity sector.

In this project, we are focusing more on educating and partnering with  Communities in Edo and Delta States.

We have set up committees in Edo and Delta States, where we track and report cases of electricity theft and vandalism with other corruption cases.”

Over  150 participants across Edo and  Delta States and representatives of the Benin City Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), Consumers Protection Agency and electricity consumers were present at the meeting.

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