Electricity: Illegal disconnections, fleecing, monsters for DisCos’ customers

Pyakasa is a sprawling village in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It’s about 12 kilometres from Abuja City Centre. An uphill area of about seven minutes’ drive from Lugbe town along Airport road, Pyakasa shares boundary with three other communities, including Aleyita and Chika.

The communities have been thrown into darkness after their electricity supply was disconnected by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) in September, a Daily Trust investigation has revealed.

These communities are a few of the  places where what could be described as ‘illegal disconnection’ cases, and high energy bills which customers described as ‘fleecing’ have been reported across some of the 11 power Distribution Companies (DisCos) in Nigeria.

Pyakasa village, sprawling across a 5.8 square kilometre land mass, has electricity infrastructures visible from afar but on getting to the village, it becomes glaring that the transformers, cables and bulbs may not have seen grid electricity for some time – actually since September 2017.

And the blackout is for a simple reason. The villagers   complied with a pre-metering customer enumeration carried out by AEDC. They   waited for one year without getting the meters promised and so complained over the high bills they were getting. They refused to pay the bills and the power authority wielded the big stick: it disconnected them.

Just like some other communities, Pyakasa village, with over 2,000 residents and small and medium scale businesses like saloons, business centres, provision stores and a police outpost, may just have experienced one of the worst cases of mass disconnection within the FCT.

But did the AEDC follow the guidelines regarding disconnection?

Illegal disconnection attracts over N1,000 fine daily – NERC

The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) issued the ‘Connection and Disconnection Procedure for Electricity Services’ regulation on December 20, 2007.  It declares all disconnections by the DisCos which do not follow due process as illegal and spelt out fines the offending DisCos would pay.

Specifically in Section 11 of the document. Once NERC finds a DisCo guilty, the DisCo will pay back to the customers an energy refund for ‘wrongful disconnection’.

A residential customer would be paid N1,000 daily; a commercial customer would be paid N1,500 daily for the period; while industrial and special customers would be paid N2,000 daily throughout the period of the wrongful disconnection.

A Daily Trust analysis shows that for the two months during which the residents of Pyakasa village were disconnected, 2,000 residential households should have been paid a daily fine of  N1,000 daily amounting  N2 million.

Record shows that the last time NERC gave such an order to refund customers was in June 2015 through its Order 139 when it said it was convinced that the Abuja DisCo overbilled some customers up to 100 per cent between October and December 2014. It was also the first time NERC issued such a fine. The regulatory body has not found the courage to issue such a directive again, even amidst complaints by customers that are being illegally disconnected by DisCos.

These energy bills are provocative – Customers

When Daily Trust visited Pyakasa village in November, the vice chairman of the electricity committee, Mr Osu Audu, explained the issues   the residents have with AEDC.

Speaking at the chief’s palace, he said, “We have two houses here that have been disconnected for the past six months, yet they still bring bills to them.”

Customers in the communities Daily Trust visited said they often contested the post-paid estimated bills brought them as they were often high when compared with the power supply they get  monthly.

For instance, a shoe factory, NAFS Stenograph Nigeria Limited, in Kuje Area Council, about 35 minutes’ drive from Abuja city, accused the Abuja DisCo of overbilling and illegal disconnection that caused the vandalisation of its private 500KVA transformer in June 2017.

The executive officer of the company, Dr Suleiman Sulu-Gambari, claimed that the DisCo’s team disconnected the transformer two days before it was vandalised. He said its first estimated bill of N170,000 came in April, a month after energising the transformer and after applying for a meter earlier in February.

“We were compelled to pay or risk disconnection and so we paid. But the bill rose to N207,000 by May which was outrageous. We paid N100,000 and contested the overbilling with the AEDC but later agreed to pay by May ending.

“But alas, on Tuesday, May 23, 2017 AEDC came in a commando style and disconnected the transformer, and no prior notice was given.  We pleaded that expatriates were fixing some vital equipment all to no avail.

“The next day, we cleared the balance of N107,000 with the hope of immediate reconnection but AEDC staff stated that it will take them three days before to reconnect the transformer.

“By Thursday May 25, 2017, we discovered that the transformer had been vandalised. This wouldn’t have been possible, if AEDC did not disconnect the transformer,” Dr Sulu-Gambari lamented.

The story of this commercial electricity customer is similar to those of some residential customers across some DisCos. At Pyakasa village, Mr Audu said he pays over N11,000 monthly, which is not commensurate with the  power supplied to his residence.

At Aso Pada town in Nasarawa State, Daniel Ahmed owns a shoemaking container shop and receives an estimated bill of over N7,000 monthly. Ahmed said the community could be without electricity for four days.  “When we contested these bills at the Aso Pada Service Unit of AEDC, they told us that it was not their fault but from the head office in Wuse Zone 4. They still came to disconnect us without giving us a solution to the high estimated billing.”

Flouting disconnection rules: The many cases

The NERC regulation also mandates DisCos to “give the customer a ‘written warning’ that the electricity supply shall be disconnected if payment is not made by the payment date,” which is after 10 days.

However, revelations from electricity customers across the FCT, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Kwara, and Kano states showed that the DisCos do not follow this rule. Many of the consumers said they often get disconnected in less than one week after estimated bills are delivered to them, with only a few getting a written warning of seven days, less than the 10 working days mandated by NERC.

When asked if she knew of the 10-day grace period, Ms Joy Ogwuche, a provision store owner at Aso Pada near the DisCo’s Service Unit said: “We are not aware that the DisCos should write warning notice to us or disconnect us after 10 day notice if we haven’t paid; once they bring the bill, they only give three to five days’ grace and then they disconnect.”

At Jikwoyi community, some 20 kilometres from the Abuja City Centre, many electricity customers are not also aware of their power supply rights. Mr Audu Attah of Jikwoyi Phase II said he was not aware that DisCo officials would have to give him a 10-day written notice.

“The ritual is, once the month is ending you will start seeing more power supply, then the DisCOs staff will bring their estimated bills for the previous month. If we are lucky at times, they will indicate with pen on the bill that we should pay within five days or less,” Attah explained.

According to the NERC regulation, the second disconnection notice from the DisCo should be a ‘written notice of disconnection’ for defaulters who have been disconnected after the 10 working days had elapsed. However, this is not being complied with by the DisCos, our investigations showed.

The notice is supposed to advise customers of ‘the date and time of disconnection, reason for disconnection, how customers can be reconnected, and the DisCo’s nearest address and telephone number.’

The regulation also stipulates that the DisCos can’t disconnect customers if they had paid the last undisputed bill or had agreements with the cashiers to pay in instalments. But this rule has been flouted many times, customers say.

Mr Audu of Pyakasa said some bills come with an inscription: ‘Clear All’ and “even if we pay 90 per cent of the said amount, the cashier will collect it but they still come to disconnect us because they said they have a monthly revenue collection target from the headquarters.”

Mrs Gloria Olushola of Mararaba town, Nasarawa State, said her shop was disconnected despite the fact that she had an agreement with the marketer that if she paid 50 per cent of her bill she will not be disconnected.

DisCos can legally disconnect if…

Daily Trust also found that Section 6 of the regulation empowers the DisCos to disconnect customers who are connected to their networks illegally, and if the installations are considered to be dangerous.

The Abuja DisCo recently disconnected Gishiri community near Lugbe in the FCT for such good cause to clean up the network. Our reporters observed in Mararaba and Aso areas of Nasarawa State and parts of the FCT that many buildings with many residents living in them are illegally connected.

Some have from 10 to 20 tenants sharing a single bill, while others ‘tap’ supply from legally connected households for their kiosks, saloons, welding and even houses. The regulation directs the DisCos to disconnect these people who engage in energy theft until they are properly connected to the electricity grid.

Customers seldom use telephone complaint option

NERC in its customer complaint regulation mandates the 11 DisCos to have Customer Complaints Units (CCU) with call centres where complaints can be resolved officially. But our reporter observed that not many customers use this option to seek redress. They prefer meeting officials at the service centres and business units who often gave them ‘assurances’; they are disconnected afterwards and their woes continue.

The Abuja DisCo had said the central CCU is being monitored from the headquarters and that customers must seek redress through the means, but either due to ignorance or other factors, some customers still shun this legal complaint resolution means.

The Village Head of Pyakasa, Chief Bako Josiah, said he hasn’t subscribed to that channel but interpersonally dialogues with the officials on their complaints.

AEDC denies illegality, NERC confirms no sanction

Responding to the many illegal disconnection procedures, AEDC had said some of the communities affected by power outages including Pyakasa requested disconnection through a letter to the Lugbe Area Office.

In an emailed response to Daily Trust enquiries, the Head of Media and Public Relations, Ahmed Shekarau, dismissed claims that there has been alleged illegal disconnection of customers.

He said, “We have not done any illegal disconnection” and that it complied with the 10-day disconnection notice to customers.

The DisCo also said it has not sanctioned any official “because there is no basis for it” as there was no wrong doing.

For Pyakasa village, Abuja DisCo said: “We have since reconnected them after they requested for reconnection. In the first instance, they asked to be disconnected.”

On the regulatory and monitory efforts of NERC to curb the flouting of the disconnection rule, its media official, Mr Michael Faloseyi, through an emailed response to Daily Trust enquiries said it monitored the performance of DisCos regularly and that, “findings after such monitoring could influence the need for a regulation, order or sanction.”

This investigation was done with support from the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) and the MacArthur Foundation.