Chijioke Okwuokenye is the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Abuja electricity distribution company (AEDC). In this interview with OLAKUNLE AWONIYI, he discloses when Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and the Federal Capital Territory will be fully metered among other issues.
Some areas within your jurisdiction are still on estimated billing, what time line can you give for full coverage?
It’s a sad one, but AEDC is focused on closing its metering gap so that all customers can move from estimated billing to metered consumption.
The federal government is partnering with DisCos in Nigeria to close the gap. AEDC has set a time line which is in another 12 months to close out all our metering gaps. However, I must say that estimated billing may not be completely eradicated because from time to time a customer’s metre can go bad and pending when you’ll replace the metre, which we are also giving ourselves a timeline from doing metre replacement, you may have to use estimated billing for a while
For us, the target is that in the next 12 months all our metering gaps should be covered and closed out.
I want to use this opportunity to appeal to customers because even as we are pushing these metres and trying to close the metering gap, there are customers who would rather have estimated consumption than use a metre. This is because they have this misconception that when you have a metre it will run fast, but that is completely untrue.
Every customer should have a metre; the metre is justified and creates a way of measuring consumption and ensures that the customer is not cheated and that everybody in the value chain of the electricity market is properly compensated.
Nigerians are not happy with current categorisation on Bands; is this the best option to enable continuous supply?
The distribution of Bands is not a function of Maitama or Lugbe; for me, most of the areas in Maitama are on Band A and you hardly find a Band A customer in Lugbe and there is a reason for it.
Band is called a service-based tariff and service-based tariff means when you are able to provide a customer adequate service, he or she should pay a reflective tariff.
Adequate service tariff has been fixed by the regulator; if you are to provide a customer 20 hours and above availability, the customer should be able to pay the tariff and that tariff band has been placed on Band A.
For other bands, depending on your ability to serve the customer and the number of hours you can serve the customer, the customer will pay for that tariff band.
It makes sense when you’re giving a customer 24 hours of supply; it means that customer does not spend money on fuel to power his generator or to power his house. But when you give a customer less hours of supply, the customer is covering a gap. For instance, if I give a customer 10 hours of supply, he has to cover 14 hours using fuel, and you and I know that fuel is far more expensive than the tariff.
The regulator in his wisdom has looked for average cost while using fuel or diesel and using the grid. As a Band A, you’re using less than four hours of alternative source of supply and so you should pay your tariff. What makes us put some customers on Band A and put some on Band B and C is our ability to serve that customer.
Also, even the areas where we have the ability to serve customers adequately, if for any reason we are unable to provide that service, the regulator makes you pay the customer a compensation or even go as far as reducing the band of that customer; that is what the entire service based tariff system is all about.
Some people usually pose as your staff and they are not; what are you doing to curb this menace?
Impersonation is a crime; such is not unique in our society. We have seen situations where people are arrested because they impersonate AEDC staff. It is a big crime and we as AEDC totally frown upon it strongly.
First and foremost, I will tell you that all AEDC staffers have identification cards, and on that card behind it you will see ‘to verify identification;’ we have a website, verify Abuja electricity.com. Type the name on the ID it will come out, and if the person is a staff you will see.
Anybody coming to you without an ID card is an impostor; everywhere I go as the MD I wear my ID card as my means of identification.
AEDC has zero tolerance for impersonation. They damage our facilities, deprive customers of quality service and sometimes they get involved in vandalism. Customers should reach out to AEDC when they come across such people.