Estimated billing by Discos
Despite the coming into effect of the new Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) 2015 on February 1, 2016, Nigerians have continued to groan under crazy bills without corresponding electricity supply. The electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) have hidden under the lack of possession of metres to continue extort consumers by charging them to pay for electricity that was never supplied or consumed. It is unacceptable that people are forced to pay for the services they never enjoyed. From available information, the crazy bills are deliberate acts by the discos to boost their revenue base and to have enough money to meet their obligations to other stakeholders such as the generation stations and gas suppliers.
But the way and manner it is being implemented is antithetic to reason, equity, justice or even any sound commercial or economic thinking. Usually, when the Discos get the bills for power supplied to them by the Gencos, they just arbitrarily divide and assign the bills among the various areas of operation (and there among consumers without pre-paid meters) and insist those places must pay the bills whether they like it or not. Of course this action has been counterproductive as most of people and areas (which are usually the poor) are unable to pay these outrageous bills. A situation whereby a bill of N25, 000 is slammed on a consumers who stays in a one bedroom flat, which hardly receives power supply for more than four hours in a week is outrageous.
The crazy billing practice has also led to a huge industry of corruption. Since many of the consumers feel the bills are too huge for them to pay, they resort to bribing colluding officials of the Discos to avoid paying the allotted bills. Meanwhile the Discos record such bills against the consumers.
In most cases, the spurious bills are so high that the Discos have no realistic ways of collecting them. This is despite the obvious fact that electricity supply is yet to improve and never reflects the bills given to consumers without meters. It is no exaggeration therefore to assert that poor Nigerians are virtually paying huge bills for “darkness”. Perhaps also, that is why the Discos have been most reluctant and unwilling to ensure the proliferation of pre-paid meters. Prepaid meters would bring more fairness and transparency into the system.
Sadly too, this extortion has been going on for years without the government or anyone coming to the aid of hapless and poor Nigerians. It is only in Nigeria that organisations would defraud the citizens and no government institution would come to the aids of it citizens.
This act of impunity by the Discos must stop. They must not drive Nigerians to the point of revolt. There is nowhere in the world where people are forced to pay for services not rendered.
It is clear that the power sector privatisation is yet to make the desired impact. For the most part, there has been absolutely no new investment by the Discos. They just exist to charge and collect outrageous bills and nothing more while power infrastructure continues to deteriorate. That is why also, despite repeated admonitions by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the Discos have refused to make investments towards metering their customers.
The abysmal performances of the Discos have led to calls for the federal government to dilute the equity of the core investors in the Discos. For that not to happen, the various investors must, without delay, demonstrate their capacity to manage the Discos by additional investments in power infrastructure and promoting efficiency in their operations.
As a start, the Discos must, without delay, ensure the metering of all power consumers in the country, do away with the concept of fixed charges and ensure consumers are charged only for power consumed.