Electricity Consumers Protest Poor Power Supply Of Electricity In C’River

Electricity consumers from Efut Musaha lower in Calabar South local government area of Cross River state Thursday stormed the customer care centre of the Calabar branch of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) to express their grievances over poor services being rendered to them by the electricity company.

The protesters, numbering over one thousand, stormed the office with placards and green leaves, singing war songs. They disrupted traffic along Calabar road. Some of the placards carried inscriptions such as ‘We no go gree ooh, we no go gree, PHED we say no to estimated billing system,’ ‘No load shading, we need metering and nothing else,’

Part of the issues that angered the consumers, our findings revealed, was payment of bills but no light.
Aggrieved consumers also disrupted official duty around the area, economic and social activities and chased other customers out of the offices. Among several demands made by the protesters who included youths and elders of the Musaha Lower Clan Council consumers were that they were being short changed and exploited by PHED.

The spoke person for the protesters, Engr. Daniel Denis lamented how consumers in the community were being cheated by the company stressing that henceforth residents of the community will no longer pay any dime into the coffers of PHED unless light was quickly restore in the area.
The people said “no light no pay. God does not dwell in darkness and anybody who wants the people to live in darkness was agent of darkness.”

They explained that they have over suffered in power outage despite the fact that they make payment to the coffers of PHED with estimated bill and pointing out that there was something sinister happening in the ICT unit leading to inflation of the tariff that is given to consumers in the area.

The protesters charged the Business manager to caution the ICT personnel to do the normal calculation to ensure that normal electricity bills are given to consumers. One of the complainers, Otobong Bassey who spoke bitterly to our correspondent on the issue decried how he got N12, 000 estimated bill for January even when he got light for only nine hours.

According to Bassey, in February, the light was reduced to seven hours yet N17, 000 bills was given to him and urged the company to stop the production and distribution of bill to the consumers pending when full supply of light will be restored.

Also speaking, HRH Muri Mkpang Bassey Edet Clan Head of Efut Musagha Lower Clan Calabar South said that henceforth he and his subjects would no longer entertain or welcome electricity bills from the PHED because of the maltreatment that the people have gotten from the electricity company.

The monarch maintained that even when they pay their bills as at when due, PHED still short changed them by doing load shading which is not favourable to the people. Responding Business Manager to PHED in Cross River Mr. George Chinwo thanked the protesters for conducting themselves in a peaceful manner stressing that arrangement is on top gear to solve the problem.