Notwithstanding growing customers dissatisfaction, in view of poor electricity supply, the Chief Executive Officer of Eko Distribution Zone, Mr, Oladele Amoda, in this interview with Clara Nwachukwu, confesses that the fortunes of the power company has improved following the June 1, electricity tariff hike. Excerpts:

We have experience one month of tariff increase under MYTO 2, how would you describe your performance since then?
I think so far so good; it has been going smoothly but the problem that we had initially was changing our vending machines and all that. You know that we have both pre-paid meter, PPM customers and we have credit meter customers. The pre-paid meter customers operation commenced on June 1, but the credit meter customers billing will commence in the early week of July. After that is done, we will then know how we have been performing.

At the eve of June 1, we had to change all of our vending machines because we have the largest number of vending machines among the districts in the country. Unfortunately, at Victoria Garden City, VGC, we had a little problem there. The place used to be on Maximum Demand Meter. However, there was a time that the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, said we should open them up and give the individual consumer directly. There are about 2,200 customers within VGC, but we inherited the vending machine that was there before and the machine is manually operated, it is not online although we are making effort to replace them.

But in an attempt to change the programme of the machine, we left some customers out. Immediately we discovered it, we went back there to reprogramme the customers that were left out, that was the only challenge we faced. The customers that paid in excess, we will give them credit; they are very few. We are also preparing for the credit meter customers because their own mode of payment is different from the PPM mode of payment, because we have to go to all the computers in Business District Unit to effect some changes before we start billing.

If this was the case, Why then did NERC invite the EFCC?
I think it was due to communication gap. They sent a letter to us asking us about the issue which we did not get. They also called and we responded, but maybe the chairman did not get the message before he had the press briefing. But we explained everything to him immediately. But I’m sure that it was communication gap that led to the invitation of EFCC to our Zone, we have put things in place to ensure that things like this don’t occur again.

Some PPM customers have complained about receiving smaller units for specified amounts far below the 11 percent hike that was expected, how do you explain this?
There has been a small adjustment in the tariff. The 11 per cent is based on n average and it varies from DISCO to DISCO, and it is not a flat rate. The only category of customers that have flat rate is the R1; they are the ones that will benefit from the tariff subsidy. But in others, there will be a variation in the billing from DISCO to DISCO.

Despite assurances from the NERC that meters will be free, some of your staff are still demanding for the payment of N25,000 for meter and N10,000 for processing, making N35,000 altogether, why?

Prepaid meters

We have made announcements and published adverts in the newspaper warning customers not to pay any money to PHCN official because it is against our operation and we don’t accept it. In the publication, we said any customer asked to pay any bribe or whatever money that is not official payment, such a staff should be reported, that is why we have inaugurated an Anti-corruption Transparent Unit, ATU that will handle such cases.

We don’t condone any sort of anti-customer behavior in EKO because we want our customers to be happy with our services. Although, we have some challenges like we are not able to give everybody electricity supply 24 hours in a day, but there is hope that very soon, like next month, people will see gradual improvement in electricity supply on a sustainable basis.

Can customer then walk into EKO to buy Prepaid Meter?
You don’t buy prepaid meters. Prepaid meter is free, it is free for both prepaid and credit meter. But what you pay for is the cost of connection because you have to pay for the meter gadgets to be fixed. But the prepaid meter is free with the new MYTO order. We have been given a mandate that within 18 months all DISCOs must meter their customers whether they are faulty meters, obsolete meters or they don’t have meters at all. They are all expected to be metered within 18 months, and we have placed advert so that some company can assist us to beef up the meter distribution and installations.

Within this one month time frame, would you say EKO services have improved?
Yes, we have improved; we are looking at the component of MYTO in prepaid meter, which is the one you can assess now. It is because of the new MYTO that we have called for our marketers to talk to them so that they can treat our customers as king, fairly, and with respect. Since we would soon commence billing on the credit meter, we don’t want a situation where customers without functional meters are billed arbitrarily. In fact, this meeting is centered on that.

We know we cannot provide meter for everybody at the same time, but those that don’t have functional meters; there is a methodology that we will use. We want to look at the availability of supply on the feeders feeding such customers; we want to see availability on their transformers and so on because all these things will be factored into giving them bills. Initially, they were given estimated bills and they have been resentful towards the billing but we want to remedy the situation.

But since the increase in tariff, supply of electricity has remained low if not worse than before, and the reverse should be the case?

As from the end of July, we will see a gradual improvement in power supply because the gas issue has been discussed and efforts have been put in place to ensure that gas gets to the power stations. If gas gets to the power station and they are able to produce more you will see the effect in our distribution system. Once the improvement begins, it is going to be on a tremendous and sustainable basis, and from there the sector will be transformed. Maybe by next year people will forget all the current challenges that we having. I am not saying that we will have 24 hours power supply but there will be significant improvement in our supply to customers and they will be happy with it.

Consumers were also promised energy saving bulbs, but none of that is happening yet, why?
It is the minister that said energy saving bulbs will be distributed, and we are yet to receive our quota. The bulbs are imported but very soon they will arrive and we will begin to distribute them to some identified customers.

Did Eko engage in any form of awareness programme for customers to prepare them for the tariff increase?
Yes we did. On the 22nd of May 2012, before June 1, we had a customer parliament where we invited our representatives of all the Community Development Associations, CDAs, Estates and other stakeholders and talked with them preparatory to MYTO and what they stand to gain in the MYTO. We were not charging cost effective tariff before that is why we were not able to discharge most of our obligations to the upstream stakeholders like the TRANSISCO, GENCOs. The revenue we were collecting was not commensurate with the cost of energy we were given.

The money we are remitting to the central pool cannot take care of the energy not to mention the cost of the gas because the gas companies too need their money; we are owing them about N40billion. All the money we generate from customers as revenues, we cannot touch it because it goes to the central account which is domiciled in Abuja, in the Market Operations Division, the central purse.

Every month the market operators, MOs, will give us bills on the energy we have taken from the national grid just as we give to our customers, and we are expected to pay the bill by 100 per cent. Once we pay, there is a mandate at the bank; it will read that bank ABC transferred staff salary and emolument.

What about customer’s satisfaction?
Because we have made our customers to be aware that top PHCN officials are watching their staff, we have opened Customer care Service Centres, we have published contact phone numbers and officers customers can reach at any time if they are not having quality services; we have also made announcements on radio. In fact a lot has been done by our zone to sensitise our customers on what to do when they are not getting good services.

Won’t the central account create a problem?
From the MYTO 2 order, the scenario has changed, and the scenario is that the MOs will give us a date we are expected to settle 100 per cent. Once we settle the MOs, then what ever is left, we will pay ourselves and do other necessary things like buying of transformers. It is now left to us to work hard and pay the bills.

In other words, you are saying that the DICSOs prefer the system under MYTO 2?
Yes, because it gives us all kind of independence to operate. It is good for us, it is now left for us to work hard and ensure that our customers are happy, because a happy customer is a friendly customer. We hope that there will be improvement in electricity supply.

So what are your challenges and how you do you hope to solve them?
The challenges that we are facing now is that we have old equipment, and we want to replace them but the appropriation that we receive on a yearly basis is just like a drop in the ocean for our requirement. I believe going forward, once are able to pay the market operators bills, then whatever is left we will be able to plough back into the system like buying more transformers, change old equipment, cables and so on.