Just like my colleague, Juliet Alohan, who ought to know better
but couldn’t place it on what to call the present electricity providers in the
nation’s Capital City in one of her recent Facebook
post, I am understandably lost too, as well as many others out there on the new
nomenclature.
Right now, I must confess that I am pissed and pained with the
current poor state of electricity generation, transmission and distribution
capacity as it affects where I am presently residing, that is Mpape in particularly and
the country in general.
And I hear the nameless electricity providers in league with the Nigeria
Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Presidential Task Force on
Power together with the ministry of power are planning to hike electricity tariff
by a huge percentage in view of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC) proposed plan to cut gas supply by 50 per cent.
I then ask, is there a sabotage somewhere or is it a deliberate ploy
by cabals of the old order or should I call it old block, who were displeased with
the sale of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), to discredit
the minister of power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, especially if his assurances of
supply is anything to go by.
In Mpape, where I live,
things have in recent times taken turn for the worst. Electricity supply which
used to be three days on and one day off, has declined to one day on and one
day off. Right now, as I have observed in the last one week, it is a half day
on and the next day total blackout. It is now a case where electricity props up
at times around 2, 3 or 4pm and goes off 8am the next day.
And it is beginning to look like the cheery news that greeted the
sale of PHCN to private operators as a result of the ongoing reform in the
power sector is taking forever to bear any tangible fruit, because, instead of
improving, it is getting worst by the day. Maybe in February, as the dry season
bites harder, we may end up going a whole week or month with electricity propping
up in our homes ones.
The billing system is not helping matter. It is a matter of worry
and is fraught with suspicion, because what is on ground now does not promote
accountability and probity. Things are muddled up in terms of revenue that is
being generated. Or what do you say about a situation where over 80 per cent of
customers especially in my area are on the manual billing platform, which I
believe is at the core of promoting embezzlement and corruption. And I also
believe that those in charge of collecting the money do not remit all the
revenues to the authorities.
My apartment is not exempted from the manual billing system and
recently a drama ensued when I went to the nearby outlet of the electricity
providers to pay my bill after I was temporarily disconnected the previous day.
The cashier on duty flared off and vehemently refused to collect the money I brought,
insisting I must provide evidence of last payment. According to her, how could
she possibly believe my claim without providing a proof? Of course, she was
right, but wait a minute, where is her records, which could be referred to when
in doubt and save us the time of argument.
But the alarming fact is that, there were no such records of
payment by all the customers on the manual billing platform who throng the
outlet, which could have served as reference point in the event of doubt like
in my case. We all are human beings, we can forget and possibly misplace vital
documents, but proper filing and good record keeping could be the only saving
grace. The manual billing thing has no records and no one knows whose pocket
the huge unaccounted resources go into in the long run.
For instance, on several occasions I will visit the DSTV outlet in
my area to renew my monthly subscription without my ID number, but without
asking question, I will proceed straight to the record book on the couch, where
all transactions on a daily basis are kept, to check for my name and any other
information I want. And without much delay I am done. With this kind of record,
auditors can go through your books and save the time of unnecessary interrogation.
No wonder, we hear of missing estimated huge amount of billions of
Naira every now and then. And proposals of trillions of Naira need to fix the
power sector have remained a mirage. When do we come out of this merry go round
thing and turn a new leaf of making customers of this important product forget
the darkness they are daily subjected to today?
And so missing funds will continue unabated as long as manual
billing thrives because it has become the cesspit of electricity revenues.
Especially as such practice goes on without proper recording keeping of payments.
This is in the in-thing in my area and in several other areas in Abuja and most
parts of the country. No record of payment exists in my area, where customers
queue up from Monday-Friday to settle their electricity bills.
The officers are only careful with those customers on the
electronic platform, and from what I was told, one need to settle officials
heavily before they can upgrade you to the electronic billing platform, because
nothing goes comes to them after payment is made electronically. This simply
means that millions of naira generated from Mpape and other areas where manual
billing is operated ends up in the pockets of individuals unaccounted for, starting
from the cashier (who normally looks well fed), other field officers (marketers)
and their ‘ogas at the top’.
Back to my encounter, eventually, I waited for the marketers
assigned to the location where I live and things were shortly sorted out, I
made the payment and guess to whom, of course, the marketers, who I learnt will
remit same to the cashier and get the receipt back to me. The electricity for
my apartment was restored after I paid N1,500 (instead of N2,000) reconnection
fee with ‘abeg’. In this area
customers pay between N3,000 and N4,000 for a compound of two to four flats
monthly to ‘enjoy uninterrupted’ power supply.
The question bugging my curious mind now, apart from seeking
answers to why the poor state of electricity distribution persist, is when are
we going to get it right, especially when simply accounting procedure is
ignored with reckless abandon.
Electricity workers, it seems have device their own means of
milking unsuspecting electricity-starved customers of their hard earned money
without providing commensurate services, using the manual billing platform
without keeping records of such payments. This is corruption of the highest
level, even though is at the grassroots. And it is unacceptable. The
authorities must tackle this abuse of payment processes immediately and put a
stop to this brought day light robbery. Even banks where almost everything has
gone digital and electronic, it still practices this acceptable tradition
accounting process, keeping manual entry of bank transactions for record
purposes.
Today it is an acceptable practice, that whether there is
electricity or not, the marketers make it a point of duty to visit homes of
customers from 12th to 20th of the next month to
disconnect power line of customers who are yet to pay their ‘electricity’ bill,
without providing explanation to why distribution has worsen.
The questions again are, should customers, therefore, continue to
pay for this glaring darkness? What is NERC regulating in the face of this
flagrant breach of customers’ satisfaction? Is the NERC regulating the
generation, transmission, distribution electricity or is it the billing/tariff?
Whatever it is that is being regulated, it is high time for answers to be given
and necessary actions taken by the appropriate authorities, before someone is
shown the way out.
Lest we forget, I still need a name to call the present
electricity providers in the FCT, because I am still in doubt. If it is not
NEPA, PHCN, GENCO, what else can we call it?
