By Samuel Ogenyi, Uyo
Customers, stakeholders and Rights groups in Akwa Ibom have expressed disenchant and furry over the exploitative business practices of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHEDC.
From issues of non investment in power infrastructures, over billing, exploitation, maltreatment to customers amongst others, the PHEDC has obviously set the faces of power stakeholders against the company in the state.
The company came under heavy criticism last week when it’s Manager, Corporate Communications, Mr John Onyi ssued a release, reacting to complaints by the Managing Director, Ibom Power, Engr. Meyen Etukudoh, alleging that PHEDC is riddled with corruption and offer poor services.
According to the statement, “without ambiguity, PHED is a responsible organization that has zero tolerance for corruption. The Management of PHED under the leadership of Dr. Henry Ajagbawa has reinvigorated the fight against corruption in different dimensions from sanctioning to naming and shaming of offenders arising from energy theft, meter bypass, unauthorized access to the network, among many others.
“Also, as a means of improving the performance of its workforce to ensure that all customer clusters are served satisfactorily, over 355 graduates from different fields of human endeavor were recently employed to meet service demand of which Uyo Zone has over 22 percent of the entire workforce.
“To encourage and motivate staff members for efficiency and productivity, the new management under Dr. Henry Ajagbawa gave permanent appointment to hitherto outsourced DSOs-Distribution System Operators and went ahead to increase the salaries of lines-workers who have remained stagnant since their employment over six years ago. “
Though the MD of Ibom Power, Engr Meyen Etukudoh said he was quoted out of context as he did not use the word “corruption”, he however maintained his earlier position that the PHEDC has failed to provide necessary infrastructure needed to straighten their business in the state .
“It was in PHEDC business plan to provide Transformers to her numerous customers but they left it for Akwa Ibom State government .
” Since 2014 , PHEDC has not put any Transformer in any community in Akwa Ibom, except one in Eket where the consumer threatened a court action.But this was supposed to be the responsibility of the Distribution Company . Recently , Akwa Ibom State Government provided 452 Transformers to communities in the state.” He said
Etukudoh frowned at situation where transformer areas are overgrown with weeds but ignored by the Company with reptiles making the transformer base their habitat and in the process destroying some components in the system while the power company look the other way.
He said that the state government has consistently providing power infrastructures including substations, a responsibility legally that of the company but regretted that PHEDC had never sent a single letter of appreciation to the state government..
Reacting to Onyi’s claims of zero corruption in PHEDC, a power consumer, Mrs Arit Inyang queried “what do you call a situation where light is only given whenever you are about to circulate bills?
“They also came up with the meter, a N5000 unit could not take us a week in a small one bedroom flat with just lighting points and television.
“What do you also call a situation where a transformer is down for a whole year, and the moment the community rally round to fix the transformer by themselves, you resurface with a bill of N104,000 or more.
“PHEDC is extremely corrupt! they force us to pay for darkness because we want to protect our wires”. She lamented.
Another consumer, Ekpenyong Udeme accused PHCN of being dubious in its nature of exploiting consumers.
Udeme alleged that the company had gone ahead to implement increment in tariff, against the presidential directive of reduction of electricity tariffs to ameliorate the suffering of Nigerians
He said having expended over N15,000 on recharging his prepaid meter, he has opted for the use of his generators.
Also, a Legal practitioner and Chairman of Human Right Communities in Akwa Ibom , Barr. Clifford Thomas listed the legal mandate of PHEDC to include provision of power infrastructure such as cables , Transformers , other accessories, maintenance of power lines as well as collection of tariffs for power distributed.
Thomas warned that Nigerians could descend on them soon if the company continued to concentrate on collecting money without concerns for power distribution, investment and maintenance of power infrastructures.
” What they do is they procure CivllDefence Corps or the police and go about harassing people stealing cables on the pretext of rolling cables away”
” The criminal code says when you take somebody’s property with an intention of not returning same , permanently depriving the owner of the ownership of same , such is stealing.” Thomas stated.
He accused PHEDC of stealing cables without providing any power infrastructure for customers.
” Now how many substations has PHEDC rebuilt in Akwa Ibom State? None ! How many Transformers has PHEDC bought and distributed in Akwa Ibom State ? None!” He said.
A community member In Ifa Ikot Okpon, Etoi, Mr Pius Etim who also lamented his community’s ordeal n the hands of PHEDC, alleged that they were heavily exploited by PHEDC officials for the installation of a transformer donated by NDDC to the community to service their new power line.
“Despite the fact that the transformer was given to us by NDDC, we still spent over N5m to install the new transformer through PHEDC certified contractors.
“Out of the said amount, over N800,000 was paid to PHEDC to secure approval to link the light to the grid. Not even a kobo from the amount was receipted for. As soon as we were linked, they started threatening us to get prepaid meter or be ready to pick an estimated bill of not less than N15,000 per compound, every month.” Etim said.
It would be recalled that Governor Udom Emmanuel, last year, had expressed his frustrations in a petition to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for the refusal of PHEDC to distribute electricity produced by Ibom Power Plant to customers in the state.
Emmanuel’s petition followed increasing complaints by electricity consumers in the state against PHEDC over alleged perennial power outage and exorbitant monthly electricity bills arising from an estimated billing system, even without a comminserate consumption.
The Governor alleged that despite sufficient power generation from the power plant to provide steady and quality electricity to the entire state, PHEDC refused to pick the load.
Not satisfied with the petition, the governor took further steps to construct 132/33kva substations in Uyo and at Ekim in Mkpat Enin LGA and distributed 452 transformers to communities in the state.
Not still satisfied with performance of the distribution company, despite the intervention, the Governor threatened to explore the possibility of a state-owned power distribution company, a threat many thought would make the PHEDC to sit-up.
Almost a year after the last threat, power consumers are of the opinion that the PHEDC has rather grown from bad, to worse as they have, instead of seeking ways to replace worn-out transformers and broken polls, continued to pile up bills for consumers.
