Metering: Community Leaders Decry Estimated Billing In Ikorodu

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Saturday, July 3rd, 2021

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Two community leaders in Ikorodu area of Lagos State have condemned continuous estimated electricity billing by officials of the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company in the area.

They explained to African Examiner in separate interviews on Saturday that most electricity consumers in over 100 Communities in Ikorodu area were not metered and have continued to get outrageous estimated bills.

The Chairman, Ereko Community Development Association under Itaoluwo area, Alhaji Adams Yusuf stated that only 10 per cent of the communities, with more than 500 houses, were metered.

He said the metered customers in his area got them through self-help efforts, alleging that they practically had to offer bribes to get the meters.

“Imagine an uncompleted three-bedroom house where only the occupants stay in just one of the rooms to be getting estimated bill of N16,000 and sometimes N23,000 in a month.

“How much of electricity could such a house have consumed to be billed such amount?

“And our electricity distribution companies (DisCo) officials never provide answers when we ask how it came to such amount from calculation,’’ he said.

Mr Tola Adekoya, the Chairman of Harmony CDA at Odogunyan, said that poor metering of houses might be a deliberate attempt by the DisCos in his locality to exploit electricity consumers.

“I have about 150 landlords in my CDA and most of them stay in incomplete buildings.

“Yet, the same amount is billed to all the houses here.

“It is unthinkable that a one-bedroom uncompleted house gets the same electricity charges with other houses that have many tenants.

“The so-called estimated bill is unfair, unjust and to us the customers here is simply a scam,’’ Adekoya said.

Our correspondent recalls that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said that giving estimated bill to Nigerians was wrong and an indicative of poor progress of the nation’s power sector reform.

The 2005 Electric Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act provided for compulsory provision of functional meters to electricity consumers in Nigeria by the authorised DisCos. (NAN)