Estimated Billings: FG Moves Against Discos

By Tosin Olatokunbo

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission FCCPC, Babatunde Irukera has disclosed that it was ready to settle the vexed issue of estimated billions once and for all by going after power distribution companies, Discos.

Many consumers have complained that they are being ripped off by Discos who make them to pay for electricity not consumed, after failure on the part of the distribution firms to supply prepaid meters to their costumers despite several directives from the federal government.

Irukera said the situation is no longer acceptable as consumers’ complaints have reached a deafening point and that the commission needed to wade into the matter. The FCCPC boss who spoke with NAN said it’s was now ready to enforce the billing capping order of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC. This, he said, is to protect Nigerians consumers from the discos.

Recall that last June, NERC threatened to sanction seven distribution firms for their failure to comply with the orders to cap estimated bills to customers. “The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued notices of intention to commence enforcement action against seven electricity distribution companies over their failure to comply with the order 197/2020 on capping of unmetered R2 and C1 electricity customers,” NERC said in a statement then.

According to Irukera, the power sector cannot be left to the whims and caprices of the powers firms  who have the capacity to cheat Nigerian consumers, adding that the agency will tighten the noose on power firms this year in order to ensure sanity in the sector.

He said FCCPC “want to plan a more strategic approach to intervening in the complaints.And so through the year, periodically, we take some of our teams to locations where we have seen that there are a lot of complaints and spend some time there ensuring that DisCos address complaints to make sure that issues that people are dissatisfied with are resolved. That is a very important one for that sector this year.”

According to statistics from the NERC over 60 per cent of electricity consumers in the country are still under the estimated billing system while many electricity consumers have yet to be awarded pre-paid meters in spite of the fact that they have paid huge sums for the machine.

Meanwhile, the NERC announced last week that it was poised to end incessant power grid failures in the country, as part of efforts to improve electricity supply. The agency said it has become a sin for Discos to reject loads, adding that anytime they do so, the firms will be made to pay for loads rejected.