Apprehension has continue to undermine customers of Kaduna Electric Distribution Company following series of electricity problems they are confronted with.
Most customers interviewed expressed dismay with the services being rendered by the electricity company ranging from high tariff, faulty transformers, cables and other materials that have kept them in total darkness for a very long time without any way out from the electricity company.
It was not surprising that recently, Jaruwa community, a new settlement along Yakowa new road, Kaduna took to the streets expressing their displeasure for being in darkness over a year without any response from electricity company.
The trend coincided with the mass disconnections by KEDCO in which many houses mostly residential are reportedly affected.
The general complaint is the inability of the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company to effectively and efficiently serve the teaming consumers but are made to be without light for months without any explanation from the electricity company.
The head of communications of the electricity distribution company, Abdulazeez Abdullahi explained that the company was paying almost N3 billion on monthly bases to purchase power it shares and distributed to consumers for consumption in Kaduna
He added that most business units were filled with consumers complaints for over billing, believing that its billing operations are in line with the methodology approved by regulatory body.
Abdilszeez Abdullahi explained that as private ownership, the Distribution Company, DISCO, paid exhubitantly for energy from Generation Company.
“You know privatization has taken place and distribution and generation company are no longer own by government.
“It means that for us in the distribution arm of the chain, we have to buy this energy from transmission company and sell it to public or communities, and we don’t have any respite for anybody than to pay for the energy before you even connect it,” he said.
Abdulazeez also said the new reality was that anybody who used power has to pay for it, “and we have been the authorized by the Nigerian Reguratory Council, NRC, to ligitimately disconnect those who could not paid, and that is why those communities were disconnected.”
According to him, with the removal of fixed charge, which was a component of the bills, constant increase reflects in monthly consumption, saying no house consumes the same amount of money on monthly bases.
On accusation leveled against KEDCO of increasing single rooms or house bill by 50 per cent within a month, he said, “Of course yes, although there are billing team or section that do that, but if that is what they arrived at, I’ve no reason to doubt the sincerity of those in charge .”
On vexed issues of target and estimated bills, he said, “There is a methodology approved which we are following, and I believe my colleagues who are doing the billing abide by it because there is heavy sanction to face if you derail.”
On whether efforts are being made to meter all residents, the KEDCO image maker said, “There is no date I can tell you that residents in Kaduna will get pre-paid meter. We have meters, but is for deployment plan and we are going to do it in phases because they are not enough.
“In fact, is not even possible because the agreement we signed when taking over the company was to meter only 100,000 houses per year, and that would be done for 500,000 houses, which is not equal to the number of houses in Kaduna,” he stressed.
Comments