Consumers owe Ikeja Electric Plc N88 billion electricity bills

Accumulated debt profile of customers under the Ikeja Electric Plc network has hit N88 billion, a development that is hindering the planned metering programme, as most its revenue are stuck with consumers who are reluctant to offset their outstanding bills.
 
The company also said the increased cost of procurement of meters have slowed the implementation of its programme of metering all electricity consumers under its network.
Spokesman for the distribution company, Felix Ofulue, said during an interactive session with the media in Lagos, that the prevailing economic difficulties in Nigeria have decelerated the substantial progress the company had already attained on metering.
 
Ofulue said the cost of procuring electric meters had jumped about four times since last year, leading to escalating cost, which was affecting the company’s operations adversely.

Ofulue said: “Currently, all our feeders connecting our consumers without prepaid metered have been metered, which will enable them to get fair estimated bills. We are currently metering our consumers in Ikeja GRA and I want to assure all our consumers that they will all be metered.”He attributed the low pace in metering the residential consumers to lack of financial muscle to meter all of them.

“A lot of activities are ongoing now on our network; we cannot concentrate only on installation of meters. Between now and end of the year, we would have done much on metering of our consumers,” he added.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, had promised to increase government spending on improve transmission network and availability of gas supply to Generation Companies. Enhanced regulatory capacity through National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on the need to pay up backlogs of bills and ensure regular payment forthwith, he said “Our Ministry intends to champion at the Federal level, I hope that state Governors, heads of agency, National and States Assembly, Military, police and other security agencies will ensure prompt payment of all their electricity bills.

“More importantly as a government and consumer of power through our ministries departments and agencies, we must show example at federal, state and local governments by paying up backlogs of power bills and ensuring from there that we pay for what we use.