IBEDC: Customers have brought digitalization into energy theft
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr. Tunji Bello, has identified insufficient metering, billing inaccuracies as among the persistent challenges facing Nigeria’s electricity industry that require “urgent and collaborative resolutions.”
Bello stated this during the opening ceremony of the ongoing “FCCPC Electricity Consumer Forum” in Ota, Ogun State, which urged consumers to “come and be heard or get on-the-spot response to your complaint concerning billings, metering, transformer, disconnection, customer service and other electricity issues.”
Bello, who was repres6 by the Principal Consumer and Business Education Officer, FCCPC, Ms. Bridget Etim, said that the event “presents non-adversarial forum for dialogue” that would enable “consumers to gain clarity on their rights and responsibilities while Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company’s (IBEDC) case workers will be available to address grievances on-the-spot.
“This aligns with our core mandate to ensure that consumer protection is practical, accessible and responsive.”
He added that at the heart of the FCCPC’s interventions is the recognition that electricity consumers are entitled to fairness, transparency and accountability.
Speaking at the foru5, the Zonal Community Development Committee Chairman for Ado-Odo Ota, Mr. Olaolapo Olatunji, said that he is at the event to obtain justice for all the sufferings his community have experienced in the hands of the IBEDC.
Olatunji decried the poor service his community is receiving from IBEDC after purchasing over 200 transformers to enable the IBEDC to improve power supply.
He said: “We are expecting justice here today from this FCCPC’s visit. But if we do not get it, we will take it up to the Presidency.
“Electricity matters dominate our quarterly community meetings. IBEDC do not even have kits for their staff. Not even ladders to climb the poles. Any time they work for us, we will rent ladders for them plus other things that we do for them. The cheating is too much. It is enormous. The government should come to our aid.
“IBEDC has not given us a single transformer in the past three years. I stand to be corrected on this.
“But if their area of coverage is too wide for them, let them downsize it. We have Ikeja and Eko DISCOs within this local government. Agbara axis is under our locality. There are some parts of Itele that is using Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC).
“If we want to migrate we will to other distribution companies. But we believe in the FCCPC and we are expecting justice from them. But if they fail we know what to do.”
However, the Head, Ogun Region of IBEDC, Mr. Abdulrasaq Jimoh, told journalists that the peculiar challenge of the electricity distribution company is energy theft. which he said has gone digital through the application of software that suppress actual electricity consumption.
He said: “They have digitalised energy theft at a higher level. Energy theft is on rampant and increasing in leaps and bounds every day.
“People are out smarting us. Do you believe that there are customers that will not do physical bypass but use software to program their meters in such a manner that it will reduce the quantity of energy they are consuming?
“DISCOs are unable to recover about 60 per cent of energy supplied to consumers because of energy theft. Only few Nigerians believed that they need to pay for the energy they have consumed.”
Jimoh also enjoined those who are confident that they have been over billed to report their cases to regulators and provide evidence of such billings for refund.
He said: “The law states that they should get the distribution company and regulators involved and also brief their lawyers before purchasing transformers. But communities will not do this.”