Rep urges electricity consumers to use conplaint offices

• …As Eko Disco earmarks N42bn to improve network

By Etuka Sunday

Electricity Consumers were yesterday advised to seek redress for poor service delivery through forum offices being commissioned in distribution centres across the country.

In accordance with the government’s transformation agenda for the power sector, the office is expected to protect vulnerable electricity consumers from exploitation by service providers.

Speaking during the official commissioning of Eko forum office in Lagos yesterday, the Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora Affairs, and a member of House Committee on Power, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, charged Nigerians and indeed Lagosians to take advantage of the forum office which provided to ensure that consumers have a say in what happens with regards to electricity supply.

Hon. Dabiri-Erewa, who maintained that consumers have the right to complain and seeks redress expressed hope that the newly commissioned edifice, would take care of some consumer issues like billing and metering.

“One thing you should know is that if you have a problem with your meter, they should get it solved within five days. But I do not know whether that is happening, now with the setup of this Eko forum I hope that will happen. And I think one of the major problems of consumers has to do with metering, all of sudden meters have disappeared.

“They are supposed to put meters in your houses but they tell you they do not have them, especially in rural areas. So I want you to go to the rural areas and ensure that meters are supplied so that the

billing problems will stop. But most important is the awareness that this service is there, and let everybody take advantage of this service that NERC is providing, because more often than not we just discovered we are not asking questions. And NERC is telling you through Eko Disco that it is your right to seek redress. It is your right to complain. It is your right to be served. And I know that this will be done under this district” she said.

The Chairman of NERC, Dr Sam Amadi said the Eko office was the second level of appeal in the chain of consumer complaints, adding that issues beyond the forum were to be handled at the final appeal stage by the NERC.

Amadi, who was represented by the Commissioner, Government and Consumer Affairs, of NERC, Dr Abba Ibrahim, stated that the office would significantly reduce the incidence of protracted and expensive litigations.

He said that the commissioning of the customers forum was to ensure that electricity customers had value for their money.

Meanwhile, the new owner of Eko DISCO, West Power and Gas Limited, Chairman Charles Momoh said it plans to invest about N42 billion to upgrade existing network facilities.

Momoh who was represented by a director of the company, Mr. Tunji Olowolafe noted that since the take-over of the powewr asset, the company had over the last three months, studied the system as a means to better provide effective, efficient and sustained power supply to consumers.

Momoh said that the next three months would be used to carry out rehabilitation exercise on the network and the setting up of a robust metering system for electricity consumers.