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Paul Osuyi, Asaba
A civil society group, Civil Rights Council (CRC), has accused the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) of allegedly conniving with Distribution Companies (DisCos) to extort electricity consumers through outrageous estimated billings.
The group said NERC has failed in its mandate by allowing DISCOs to issue high and unregulated estimated bills to Nigerians.
Chairman of the CRC, Comrade Agbubi Ejovwoke, said the development has resulted in the deliberate refusal to provide prepaid meters to consumers.
Ejovwoke added that despite series of complaints launched to the commission by electricity consumers, it has failed to take a firm stand on the issue.
He, therefore, urged the Federal Government to scrap NERC over its continous failure to execute it’s core mandate.
“We want the Federal Government to scrap NERC because the commission as it is today has lost focus and is just there receiving huge budgetary allocation for doing nothing.
“Early this year, I think February, after series of complaints and protest carried out against the injustice done to consumers by the DISCOs, especially BEDC, NERC came up to say they have placed a limit on what DISCOs are to charge unmetered customers.
“They put the maximum that any DISCO can invoice a residential customer at 78kWhr x N24/ kWhr = N1,872 per month yet you see these DISCOs issuing bills as high as N28,000 for a single customer.
“The annoying thing is that when you launch a complain to NERC through their website, they only acknowledge through their automatic acknowledgment programme but never treat them…”
