The challenges of whistle-blowing on energy thieves

Nigerians have been called upon to adopt the whistle blowing policy of the Federal Government to expose electricity consumers within their neighborhood, who consume power illegally.

Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing said this is unfair to about six million Nigerians who pay their bills to keep the lights on for the illegal consumers.

Fashola said this at the 16th Monthly Meeting of Operators in the Power Sector, which was hosted by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), at Ugwuaji 330/132KV Transmission Sub – Station Enugu State, on June 12.

Members of the public are encouraged to extend the whistle blowing policy to the power sector to ensure energy theft is brought under control, while stakeholders in the sector are enjoined to name and shame energy thieves as a deterrent.

This calls follows the successes recorded in the use of the policy to expose politically connected people or former government officials who allegedly corruptly enriched themselves while in public office.

Abubakar Malami, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice while commissioning of the South-West Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Oyo state, said the success of the policy is a testament to “the fact that Nigerians are indeed ready and willing to partner with the government in the fight against corruption”.

Malami advised Nigerians to intensify efforts toward fighting corruption by way of collaborating with the Federal Government and taking it down to the lower strata of society – the states, the local governments and the wards to ensure that corruption is fought effectively and aggressively.

Recently, the Federal Ministry of Finance said that the sum of N375.8 million has been paid to 20 providers of information under the Whistleblower Policy. According to Salisu Dambatta, director of Information, the payment was related to the recovery of N11.6 billion

Dambatta said the payment was only for recovered assets that had been declared free of legal disputes or litigation by the Attorney-General of the Federation and taxes have been removed before final payments to beneficiaries.

However, application of the whistle-blower policy in the energy sector is little more nuanced. For one, many customers are dissatisfied with the quality of service of currently provided by the electricity companies. Worse still, customers are slammed with estimated billing termed as crazy billing.

This removes incentives for many customers to reveal to the authorities the identity of those who consume power illegally. A recent raid carried out in highbrow Lekki area of Lagos state showed that highly influential people were culpable in stealing power. Many of those involved in the act almost see it as a way of sticking to the power companies whose services are woefully inadequate.

Another challenge presented in the application of the whistle-blower policy in the energy sector is what compensation system would be most effective. Whistle blowing in Nigeria is seeing a modicum of success because there is a huge incentive of almost 5 percent for any disclosure that yields to recovery of stolen assets. It is not clear how this will be applied in the power sector.

Nigerians willingness to self-generate power and play almost twice the cost of grid connected power indicates that many customers would readily pay a fair rate for uninterrupted power. Also, there are smart meters that can adequately calculate the exact power consumption.

Hence the focus of the ministry should ensuring that power consumers have prepaid meters as all over the world, it has proven an effective way to cut collection losses.

ISAAC ANYAOGU