Eko Hot Blog reports that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) has proposed to deploy the use of smart meters in a bid to stamp out the trend in consumer power supply theft in Ibadan.
Amounting to loses running into millions of naira every month, the culprits of the criminal act as identified by the company are residences who don’t make payment on their bills or are not paying actual amount on their bills, those who bypass their meters, and others who surcharge IBEDC, among others.
The Head, IBEDC Customer Support, Mr Ayoola Adio stated this in Ibadan at the Electricity Consumer Complaint Resolution Platform where he revealed that the company runs on a deficit every month.
He said: “Energy theft is a major menace we have in the industry and it’s not limited to IBEDC alone. People are not paying their actual bills. They tamper with their meters to shortchange the company as some customers remove AC and other home appliances consuming light from their meters. Through this way, we have been losing a lot of money. We don’t even want it to look like exaggeration, we lose more than N3Billion every months. Some don’t even have meter at all, they connect directly to electric pole.
“First thing we do to curb the menace is sensitizing the people. And it’s not business as usual as we have let them know they will go to jail if they are caught. We have sent our patrol team out to sensitize and we are deploying technology, using smart meters to know when customers tamper with them.
Adio, who represented IBEDC Managing Director said the development is worrisome, and calls for cooperation between the company and electricity users .
He appealed to consumers to pay bills promptly, report defaulters, and support IBEDC so as to have money to resolve issues affecting customers.
“We are handling our customers well, we feel pains whenever customers come for complains because our duty is to serve them better, the major complains from our customers is over billing and the only solution to that is metering but we are trying to bridge the gap,” he said.
“We want to sensitize our customers to desist, they should know that there is now a provision under the law that punish violators or defaulters.”
In his remark, the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Babatunde Irukera urged electricity consumers to contribute their quota towards ensuring adequate electricity supply.
He commended initiation of the platform for enabling service providers and consumers interact buttressing the fact that feedback and empathy are variables that can foster efficient delivery of service to consumers by IBEDC.
He admitted that as much as Power supply had not improved over the years, the company wants to curb the menace of theft it is beset with to enable better service delivery to responsible consumers.
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