ELECTRICITY: Why the need to pay your monthly consumption?

 

News Desk

Electricity industry a bane to Economic growth

Power supply shortages cripple the agricultural, Education, health, industrial, and mining sectors, stifling Nigeria's ongoing economic development. The energy supply crisis is complicated, stems from a number of issues, and has been going on for decades. To supplement the intermittent supply, most Nigerian businesses and households that can afford it run one or more diesel-fueled generators.

Nigerian power reforms have centered on privatizing generator and distribution assets and encouraging private investment in the power sector since 2005. The government maintains control over transmission assets while making "modest progress" toward creating a regulatory environment that is appealing to foreign investors. There has been a minor increase in average daily power supply in the country.

Following the reforms, the transmission network remains government-owned and operated, and it is the weakest link in the power sector supply chain. Transmission lines are old and dangerously close to collapsing on any given day. More power is generated, the transmission network cannot handle any additional power loading. The lines are designed for a peak capacity of only 3,000 to 3,500MW per day, and breakdowns virtually occur on a daily basis. The lack of maintenance and security challenges in some parts of the country only exacerbates the situation.

In 2021, after extended hours of power outage in many parts of the country, electricity distribution companies announced a grid breakdown, urging the public to be patient and promising to restore power across their franchise area as soon as load allocation improved, July which was the 4^th collapse. The national grid experienced a partial failure on February 17, resulting in power outages in some parts of Nigeria. In March, the country experienced widespread power outages due to operational issues at 18 plants that generate the majority of the country's electricity.

Even with all these system failures, outages and sometimes spent 24 hours without the Power supply, it does not mean that we should not pay for our monthly consumption, even at fixed account consumption. Is a simple Arithmetic assuming you are charge for 148units at N44.55 per unit, plus VAT of 7.5percent, gives you a total of N7,081.54. Take the monthly charges and divide by 30 days to get a maximum of N 236.051 per day. Are you saying that, with all the fans, sockets, lighting points, refrigerators, and so on, in the house can’t consume N236.051in a day?  

Guys, let us face the facts: no businessman or woman will have her goods sold on credit, resulting in a bad debt. Generation generates the energy, which is evacuated by Transmission and sold by the Distribution. Distribution must then remit the monetary value of energy consumed by both metered and unmetered customers, as well as maximum and non-maximum demand customers.

We need to get rid of the mindset among Nigerians that everything provided by the government must be cheap, if not free, as this is a major threat to our country's businesses. Let us be fair in our dealings in order to be close to perfection in terms of paying electricity bills. Go to Niger Republic and see the kind of energy discipline reservation they have, all gadgets will be turned off when not in use just to reduce daily consumption and ensure efficiency. In Nigeria, we do not turn off electrical equipment, and we expect the least amount of power consumption, which is equivalent to producing iron from rubber.

The story of the distribution companies (DISCOS) is more analogous to that of a "licensed armed robber," and their modes of operation, despite the so-called and faulty privatisation, operate in monopoly, as was and still is the case with Nigeria's power sector. They present you with a "unconsumed bill, continuous fixed charges, prompt disconnection, delays in attending and clearing faults, estimates to repair their faulty transformers and poles, and sometimes even their vehicles"

Many customers want 24 hour power supply, but the companies claims that not even the government can afford it. Some customers have narrated the path forward in this never-ending battle between the electricity companies and their customers. Some customers stated that they pay their monthly charges, but not "Crazy bills," which are bills given to them, that someone wrote on their bills while sitting in the comfort of his office. "I've never come across the nature of their business, either in Commerce or Economics, where you have to pay for their faulty equipment(s) repairs while also paying for their epileptic services on a monthly basis."

Investigation reveals that many customers do not have a Bill to pay for their consumption, and the companies charged them on "Lost of Revenue" for what they described as a "Hand bill" that channeled the lot of the money from Customers into personal money, and in this situation, the companies are always asking where their monies are going.

Though spoke on the condition of anonymity, a staff of Kaduna Electric and Kano Electricity Distribution Company testified separately that "the companies cannot provide meters to all of its franchise customers without government intervention" and directly to customers, not to channel the assistance to their heads, which they believes they would not want it, and they crushed it out that, there is "no justification" for charging customers for fixed consumption, but it is the only way, a condition which they referred to as "the hard way the only way."

Crazy bills, insufficient power supply due to energy management internally by the DISCOs, rampant disconnection of customers, late attending to faults or not attending at all, buying materials to fix the companies' faulty equipments, baseless argument that customers do not pay their consumption, lack of meters by customers, and many more were among the identified problems that customers were concerned about the electricity in the country.

A former Chief Executive Officer of one of the zones said "A possible solution to all of these problems you mentioned could be to use meters for all customers to justify consumption and billing, which will undoubtedly be a future impossible project. However, if NERC allows customers to purchase meters on their own, it will go a long way toward closing the revenue generation gap, energy theft and loss of revenue will be included in DISCOS' monthly collection, this will increase collection while also reducing or closing all "collection losses"

For the average Nigerian, they always want to see things on the ground before they pay for them. Energy management can sometimes be what tongue tight the DISCOS collection at all levels, some times Transmission Company complains that energy is there making "Noisy sound" but DISCOS' don't want to pick load, just to avoid consumption they can't collect back its money value. All Nigerians hope that the electricity sector will be reorganized to provide economic growth and potential development in the country. Companies should be able to stand on their own two feet and conduct business as a legal entity, providing where needed.

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