- As They Protest 10 Months Power Outage to NERC
- NERC Gave JED 7 to 30 Days Ultimatum To Resolve Issues
In an investigation conducted by our Correspondent in Jos, the Capital of Plateau State and the headquarters of the distribution company reveals that customers in Jos are paying through their noses as a result of arbitrary and outrageous billings meted on them by JED.
These revelations were made as a result of appeals and complaints written by individuals as well as communities within Jos and Bukuru Metropolis, these complaints were treated by the Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission, NERC upon receiving those letters of complaints, the Commission that comprises of five members invited the complainants as well as JED.
Agingi Community in Jos is one of those communities that table their complaints for possible resolutions. The community who led by Mr Sunday Akpa, a retired Permanent Secretary with the Government of Plateau State accused JED for not supplying them with light, adding that their transformer developed a fault, and they contributed money and paid to one of the JED officials and receipt was issued in respect of the payment, he further said that the JED official came to pick the transformer and they are yet to return it up till date.
According to the representative of the community, Akpa, “we gathered money and paid and they took the Transformer, which they will return it in the next three days but up to this moment we have not seen the transformer.”
Though, the Head of JED Customer care Mr. Lucky Akorbi Austin who represent JED denied that no official of the distribution company collected any money from anybody, he added that if anybody collected any money he said it is not known to his company as far as he is concern. According to Mr Austin, “We are aware of their challenges and I want the community to assure us that they will not attack our staff because of their hostile nature.”
The Chairman of the Panel Mr. Veiir Adelaka, blamed the JED, that their actions and inaction led to blackout in the said community. “Your actions and inactions led to the blackout in the community”. He further said, “Those communities are not hostile as you claim. All they need is light. From now to seven days, restore light to that community.”
Another community in the hands of Jos Electricity Distribution Company is Angwan Rogo in Jos North local government area, this is one of such communities that has been neglected for the past ten months without electricity, leaving the people of the area to groan in total darkness.
The Chairman of the Panel Mr. Veiir Adelaka,
Our checks reveal that the community approached the NERC office in Jos with an appeal seeking for succor on their plight. The community was led by Councilor representing Angwan Rogo/Angwan Rimi Hon. Nasir Ali who said the community have being without electricity for the past ten months, “we have been complaining to the company time without number, whenever you complain, they wouldn’t listen to you but will turn into deaf ears, or they will start blaming game, sometimes they will complaint for lack of vehicles.
“The transformer there is faulty and they are not willing to fix it, they are not being fair to us at all. I want to assure you that, 99 percent of our people are on estimated billings, there are no meters, and we are paying base on estimation.”
In his response, the Head of JED customer care said about two thousand meters were brought by the company but the codes is that of Abuja and they will not function in Jos, he promised to escalate the case of Angwan Rogo community to the head of Technical Unit and the problem will be resolved within thirty working days.
It was so sad that about, Ninety five to ninety six percent of the complainants were on estimated billings, lack of meters, and most of them claimed that they have paid for meters since 2016, some of these Residence are Tudun Wada, Zaramaganda, Bukuru, Rantya.
They all beg NERC to rescue them from JED for outrageous billings, some complain that with only two to three apartments but are receiving bills of N25, 000 and the bill is uniform with those that reside in single apartments.
One of the burnt Transformer in Jos area
According to them, “whenever we go to them to complain, they will be so reluctant to attend to us or you will spend several hours before they will attend to you and yet no positive results, that is why we are compelled to write to the Commission.
In a related case, a resident within the influence of JED coverage who addressed himself as Tony Emmanuel said that he has been billing N44, 000, N47, 000, upon his complaints they reversed It to N10, 000, “Mr. Chairman sir, if you see how JED staff behaves, you can fall-down and die, I went to the head office to see Mr. Lucky and I spent almost the whole day and the utterances from their staffs are unpalatable. They have very carefree and nonchalant attitudes.”
In all the twenty two complaints, are mostly hinged on overbilling, lack of meters, overloaded transformers, low voltage. The Electricity regulator mandated the JED to fix those problems within thirty days, especially, to meter those houses so that they can pay from what they consumed. Those that were over-billed should also be reviewed.
The rigorous exercise which lasted for two days, was described as a huge success by the chairman of the Forum. After his interventions on the issues, Mr. Veirr Adelaka also find good time to respond to some questions from time Nigeria Correspondent in Jos. He said, “As you can see, we are five in number, we represents various interests, Architects, Engineers, consumer protection council etc. I will like to advice JED to hasten up in providing meters that will satisfy customers as they are complaining of overbillings by estimation and they are not comfortable with that at all.”
When asks of his advice to consumers, he said, “I equally want to advice the consumers to try and pay their bills, when you are overbilled is not enough to ignore it.”
Austin therefore assured consumers of improvement and better services, he said, “JED stands for one thing, is to satisfy our customers and deliver quality services to them and at all times, our doors are open for customers to complain for services that are not ok for them, any time they are aggrieved, we have customers’ complaint office.”
He noted that the issues of nonchalant attitudes by our field staff which are causing these grievances of back and forward movement, he assured the panel that it will be looked into. “We advise our customers that if you discover any of our field staffs that do not treat you well, please kindly escalate to the office and let us know that staff, so that we can deal with them appropriately.
“We have a timetable that we are educating and sensitising our staff because they need to know the Regulations and Standard Operating Procedures of all our services and operations. We are telling them on what to do, the customers are kings, without them, there wouldn’t be JED, JED are there for all customers, they should treat them well listen and treat their cases, give them timeline for their cases to be resolved.
“We are also sensitising our customers because some of them don’t know anything about our services and operations we are doing that in collaboration with the Association of Electricity Distributors, NERC, we meet with community leaders and their members and we educate them about our services, we equally have radio programmes that we air on every Wednesday about our services and equally lay the complains.
“I want to appeal to our customers to be patience so that they will not be duping, some of them are not patience enough, they engaged electricians on services on their houses and they will use substandard materials and drop the light and will be charge huge money and at the end of the day, if there is any fault or fire outbreak, they will blame JED.”
The Head Customer care pointed out that, “Any customer that need our services can just walk to our office or you can write to us and there is a form that will be given to you, you will fill it and we will instruct our field staff to find out and recommend a qualified electrical contractor that will wired your house not the one that will drop service, because its only JED that drops service.
The NERC receives complaints from the members of the general public after they write a Letter of Complaint to JED and JED fail to address such problems. Then they can write to us. Adelaka said.
