Still on estimated billing

The stormy relationship between electricity consumers and the distribution companies may further worsen if the clouds gathering on the horizon makes landfall.Sections of electricity consumers are calling for mass action in the form of lawsuits and outright rejection of bills against electricity distribution companies over some crazy billing methods not based on consumption. This sharp practice is widely known as “estimated billing” in the industry.
The decision by a section of electricity consumers long exploited through billing by a toss of the dice will have huge implications for the wobbly sector. Countless times, we have counselled that if this anomaly is not discontinued, it has the potential to derail the gains from the 2013 electricity privatisation.

At a recent Town Hall meeting organised by Enough is Enough (EiE) in partnership with other non-governmental organisations that held in Lagos, recently, legal practitioners were visibly distributing complaints form and taking information from consumers with the aim of instituting a class action suit against the Discos for the spate of crazing billings that have been giving to consumers that they have refused to give meters to.

Sadly, the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) has been largely failed in its duty of checking the excesses of the Discos, Gencos, and even the transmission company of Nigeria. But this is not surprising as even NERC has been without a Chairman and commissioners since last year.

To make matters worse, these Discos charge outrageous bills for supplying very little or no power. This is what riles consumers the most.

Meanwhile the Discos haven’t been able to offer convincing reasons why they are unable to meter their customers all these while even after several complaints and directives from many quarters.

But as this is going on, local meter manufacturers are complaining of little or no patronage from the discos. Local meter manufacturers recently complained of losing over N10 billion worth of investments due to lack of patronage from the Discos as some of them who got loans for their operations struggle with huge interest rates and poor sales in a country lacking in meters.

Worse still, they secured funding through CAPMI, a programme by NERC to improve local capacity in meter manufacturing and there is no provision to compel discos to actually buy these meters.
Each of the discos has a waiting list of customers who need meters, and some have been on the list since they were first created about two years ago. Some of the discos have argued rather disingenuously that they are waiting on imported smart meters but are constrained by access to foreign exchange.

We feel the foot dragging of the Discos to meter their customers is deliberate and an attempt to charge excessive bills from consumers without meters. Investigation has shown that those without meters pay three or four times the amount paid by those with meters. We do not think it is justifiable for discos to complain about not being able to meter their customers even when local capacity for meter production is widely available. It is totally unacceptable, as the Minister of Works, Power and Housing averred recently in Kaduna, that there are only 6 million metered consumers of electricity in Nigeria.

We feel the entire system of electricity billing is rigged against hapless consumers in Nigeria. NERC’s regulations protecting the consumers which stipulates that they cannot be given bills without meters apparently don’t apply and are only worth the papers on which they are written on.

NERC, as a matter of urgency, needs to rethink its approach to regulating the industry and ensuring that consumers are adequately protected. Merely saying that they charge a fine from discos for non-metering is merely tokenism. They need to push the agenda to meter Nigerians by imposing a deadline on the metering of all consumers.

While there may be scepticism regarding the possible success of a class action suit, the discos should known that it takes only one eccentric judge to open the floodgates like the judgement of the Federal High Court reversing the 2015 tariff increase by NERC had done.