IBEDC customers Protest Payment Point Centralisation

• IBEDC customers Protest Payment Point Centralisation

Electricity consumers in Ibadan on Wednesday complained that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company had made it difficult for them to recharge their pre-paid meters because of its failure to decentralise the payment points.

Many of them said that despite coming from long distances to the payment points, they usually spend several hours in the queue whenever they wanted to recharge their pre-paid meters. They also complained that often, the machine used at the designated offices would stop working because of its inability to attend to the large number of consumers waiting for service.

One of the aggrieved consumers, Funmilayo Aina, told our correspondent at the office of the IBEDC in Odo-Ona area of Ibadan that the payment point was the only one serving customers in Apata, Owode, Omi-Adio, Gbekuba, Idi-Ishin and other parts of the area, while calling on the company to decentralise the system.

She said, “Our experience is unpleasant. We struggled to procure the meter and again we are struggling to feed it. I came a long way from here and I don’t see any reason why we should be treated this way. There is only one payment point for thousands of customers in this area with more than eight large communities. It is either the computers are being repaired or are faulty, or there are long queues of customers waiting to pay to recharge their meters.

“We deserve better treatment because we are paying for what we consume. The pay point should be decentralised. In this age of technology, do we need to visit the IBEDC to recharge our meters? There should be an easier alternative to make things better for us.”

If we can recharge our mobile telephone anywhere and online, the IBEDC should improve on its services in this modern age.”

Many other consumers of electricity distributed by the IBEDC had similar complaints when our correspondent contacted them at other payment points in Dugbe area of Ibadan.

While reacting to the complaints, the Head, Branding and Communication, IBEDC, Angela Olanrewaju, said there were other online payment options for customers to explore.

She stated, “We had a general breakdown of our payment server, but we have rectified that. We implore customers to contact out customer care office if they have complaints.

“We have online payment systems like Quickteller and scratch cards, and they can pay in the banks. We are also trying to migrate customers to the mobile telephone payment system.”