- ‘N88b Debt, Recession Threaten Metering’
Over N88 billion debt owed by customers and the economic downturn are responsible for the slow metering of consumers in Ikeja Electric Plc.
The firm’s Head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Felix Ofulue, said Ikeja Electric has a robust metering programme but owing to the recession in the country coupled with the huge debt, which is in excess of N88billion, the metering programme has been slowed down. The debts are owed by all categories of customers, including maximum demand customers.
He confirmed that the firm has metered all maximum demand (MD) customers in line with the directive of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), noting that such metering goes on regularly as new MD customers come on board.
He said Ikeja Electric, despite the problems facing the firm, is committed to metering all its unmetered customers within the stipulated time in the metering prpgramme.
He added that it wouldn’t be possible for all customers to be metered at the same time because of the huge cost involved. He appealed to customers that have not been metered to be patient as they would be metered.
For the unmetered customers, he said the company has an established billing method approved by the industry regulator (NERC) for them, based on factors, such as the customer’s consumption over time and availability of power supply within the particular month for which the customer was billed.
“All our feeders connecting our consumers without prepaid metered have been metered, which will enable them to get fair estimated bills.
‘’Notwithstanding, we are metering our consumers in Ikeja GRA and I want to assure all our consumers that they will all be metered,’’ he added.
