…insist no pre-paid metres, no payment for estimated bills
By Mike Oboh
Residents of Jikwoyi Phase 4 yesterday demonstrated in Abuja against overbilling by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company insisting on the need to be supplied Pre Paid metres.
The residents who trouped out in large numbers with various placards with inscriptions such as “Our mumu don do” “No Pre paid metres we won’t accept estimated bills again” “Give us Pre paid metres and stop cheating us enough is enough,” started the peaceful demonstration from Phase 4 to Phase 2 and headed to the AEDC office in Ngwangade along Jikwoyi- Karshi road to lay their grievances.
According to them, it was disheartening that AEDC has been milking them dry with estimated bills even when power supply to the area was erratic and in some cases they stay days without electricity supply by the company.
Spokesman for the residents, Engineer Bukola Daniel while narrating their ordeal said apart from the inefficiency on the part of AEDC, every month they come up with estimated bills with higher amount which they could no longer take.
Daniel described the action of the company as unexplainable as most often when there is power supply in the area, household appliances are destroyed and of recent a house was razed down because of inconsistency in its supply channels.
He said it was unfortunate that a community with over 22,000 houses is compelled to pay a bill of close to N280million for the 7434 megawatt transmitted to the Feeder K2 monthly.
According to him, the supply chain of the Feeder K2 is not limited to the area as the officials of the company usual remove fusses from the Transformers to supply electricity to other nearby localities.
Daniel said they agreed to stage the protest to press home the need for the AEDC to supply the community Pre Paid Metre as the 5314 units brought to the area were not even distributed to residents in the area but to people in Kurudu and Kpegyi by unscrupulous staff of the company.
“I must tell you one thing, we are tired of this overbilling by the AEDC and the only solution is for them to give us pre-paid metres, we are not going to honour their estimated bills henceforth.
“We won’t allow them to come to our areas to cut lights from our poles because most of the facilities we have were brought by the community and for justice to prevail we want them to address the issue of pre-paid metres for our people. You can imagine they only brought 5314 pre-paid metres to a community with over 22,000 houses, is the fraud they want to continue to perpetuate that inform such decision,” Daniel said.
