Report any official selling pre-paid meters, AEDC tells Abuja residents

…Insist meters not for sale

Ukpono Ukpong, Abuja

Disturbed by the growing agitation against what Abuja residents described as the deliberate attempt by some officials of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to frustrate their efforts at getting pre-paid meters, the company has appealed to its consumers not to pay for the meters as they are free.

In an exclusive chat with Daily Times, the General Manager, Corporate Communications at AEDC, Oyebode Fadipe, called on Abuja residents to report any official of the distribution company compelling customers to buy pre-paid meters, adding that stiff punishments, including outright sack awaits any staff found wanting.

Fadipe, disclosed that the company had in the past dealt with some of its staff found guilty of engaging in such unwholesome practices, adding that the offenders have been punished depending on the level of their involvement.

Frowning at the insinuations that officials, including top AEDC management staff use some juniors staff as middlemen to sell pre-paid meters to customers, Fadipe said no staff no matter how highly placed would escape the wrath of the electricity distribution firm if found wanting.

Although, he agreed to AEDC’s inability to provide pre-paid meters to all its customers due to some challenges, he appealed for patience from customers as the power distribution company is doing its best to ensure all its customers are metered.

Reacting to the issue of estimated billing, he expressed regrets that the customers has to endure with the company for the meantime explaining that the procedure will only be totally rid-off when not less than 90 per cent of the customers are metered.

“I would not want to push all the blame to the manufacturers, I would rather think they also have some challenges in the supply of meters. Of course, I know that some of the requirements to make the meter will have some offshore components such as financing of the project.

“For instance, we have a contract with a company called Merron and that contract is N10 billion.

That contract is supposed to give us over 200, 000 pieces of meters and of course, if they don’t have a manufacturing company in Nigeria, they will have to interact with their partners outside. And what we do is that, we push out the meters as we receive them.

“It’s unfortunate, that we are not able to run at a speed the customers expect us to run. You should also understand that the process of metering has its challenge of logistics.

It’s not something you can do with the big banks, but by the grace of God the government is trying to solve that problem with the newly introduced policy known as Meter Asset Provider (MAP),” Fadipe added.

He noted that the implementation of the policy will bring about the liberalization of metering, declaring that “it will open the market for those that have money to invest to start producing the meters for customers and the customers will be expected to pay for it and the customer will get the meter within 10 days.”

The corporate communications manager explained further that after the installations, the DISCOS, in this instance the AEDC, will have to refund the customer the money used in purchasing the meter by allowing such a customer to use energy over a period of time.

“Under our current Meter Provision Policy (MPP), meter is free. However, when we go into MAP, customers will pay, though on the long run it will still be free because the money you paid initially will be refunded to you via energy.

“For example, if you come to buy energy and you have paid for MAP, we will just factor it out. Let’s say you are buying N5, 000 worth of power, what we will do will be to give you more than the amount you have paid for over a period of time until it covers the amount you paid for the meter,” he assured.