The residents of Moore Road Estate, Yaba, Lagos have differed with Eko Electricity Distribution Company(EKEDC) over the continuous delivery of estimated bills to the residents months after prepaid meters were installed for them.
The residents have insisted on not making payments for the estimated bills because they did not see the reason why EKEDC would deliver such bills.
A correspondent of NAN who visited the area observed that the prepaid meters were installed side by side with the analogue ones.
The residents who currently do not pay for recharging their prepaid meters are wondering why the facility has not been inaugurated and they are being given N8,000 monthly.
They also told NAN that because they resisted the payment, their estimated bills have now accumulated to about N200,000 to N250,000 per building.
Mr Lateef Obe, the Chairman of the estate’s Community Development Association, told NAN that they were joyful when officials of EKEDC installed the prepaid meters in November 2015.
“We thought the era of estimated billing was over but our joy was cut short when we waited endlessly for EKEDC to remove the analogue meters in the building and commission the new prepaid meters.
“But the residents were surprised when in January 2016 EKEDC brought estimated bills.
“To everybody’s amazement, the bills were outrageous that some flats were billed N100,000 and some N50,000 even when we were not owing before the meters came.
“This is the first time that I will see that after prepaid meters had been installed, the consumer will still be receiving an estimated bill side by side with the prepaid meter,” he said.
Obe said that the residents met with the officials of EKEDC to resolve the matter but to no avail.
NAN learnt that each of the prepaid meters had 1,200 units of credit, which was not paid for when it was installed.
Reacting, Mr Godwin Idemudia, General Manager, Corporate Communications Unit of EKEDC, told NAN that the meters were used to test run the power supply to the area.
He said: “We are using those meters to test run the effectiveness of our communication system.
“We are doing this to ensure we are not short-changed by the consumers and once we are through, the meters will eventually become theirs.
“They cannot insist that the meters are theirs now because they did not apply for them and that they are billed through the analogue meters.
“The company’s representatives had met with the consumers in the estate on this matter because the meters were not connected directly to what the residents consume.
“This is why they are still being billed manually but the company is surprised the consumers are protesting the bills when they have not made any payment on it”.
Idemudia assured the consumers that they would soon be through with test run and the billing would be normalised.
The general manager urged the consumers in the estate to apply for prepaid meters through the CAPMI scheme if they could not wait.
CAPMI is Credit Advance Payment for Metering Implementation whereby electricity consumers apply for prepaid meters by paying an amount which will be refunded to him later.
On estimated billing, Idemudia said: “The danger is that it is either you are cheating the company or the company is cheating the consumer.
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