ESTIMATED BILLING IS EVIL: The Plight of Mr. Abubakar

The receipt of an outrageous electricity bill occasioned by epileptic power supply can send any sane customer into a frenzy. It is difficult to draw a link between high estimated energy bills and poor power supply……it just can’t be! So you understand when a customer like Mr. Abubakar is bitter with the services of the electricity distribution company (DISCO) supplying his residence.

MR ABUBAKAR AND A FAULTY METER

Mr. Abubakar has lived in his current residence from January 2015 till date. However, on 2nd November 2018, his electricity supply suddenly stopped. He thought it was an internal electrical fault, thus tried to get it fixed but to no avail. After a week of running on self-generated power, it was discovered that the fault was a burnt cable in the meter which resulted in its shut down. He reported the incidence to the DISCO, who visited his apartment on 10th November 2018 to connect him directly to the network as a temporary solution (a story for another day). Prior to the direct connection, Mr. Abubakar spends an average of Five thousand naira monthly in energy consumption, this is a fact and on record with the DISCO. On 24th January 2019, Mr Abubakar received a new meter for his residence; thus he spent just eleven weeks outside the metering cycle whilst connected directly to the DISCOS’s network. Lo and behold, as Mr. Abubakar was just set to shout hurray! for the new meter installed in his apartment; he got issued a bill of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N150,000) for a six months’ period starting May – October 2018. This came as a shock to him! This is unexplainable! How is it possible to receive an estimated bill for a period the customer was metered, a period when he bought and loaded energy unit into his meter? Mr. Abubakar made a formal complaint to the DISCO disputing the authenticity and accuracy of the bill, he made a request for his statement of account on his old meter to be printed out. The DISCO declined to provide him the statement of his account, rather they explained as follows:

1.   As a policy, when a customer reports a faulty meter, we automatically back bill the customer for six (6) months regardless of the situation since we are unable to determine the nature nor impact of the fault. 

2.   The amount billed is done arbitrarily based on the class of customer and phase of meter.

By implication of the above explanation, the customer is penalized when a meter goes bad. The DISCO uses it as an avenue to exploit and extort the customer for its own negligence and inefficiency. How then can a country make progress, when it’s citizens are brazenly exploited by private business due to the essential benefit of a product or service.

 THE PLIGHT OF ELECTRICITY CONSUMERS

With the past, present and continuous horrid experience by electricity consumers on estimated billing by DISCOS, the right time for the government to ACT is now!!! Estimated billing is evil, exploitative and selfish. It is common knowledge that the DISCOS rake in a lot of cash from estimated billing, because it is done arbitrarily with no logical basis.

In the case of Mr. Abubakar, the DISCO had his records for over a four-year period, they could have calculate his average monthly consumption, then use that as a basis to bill him for the eleven (11) weeks he was connected directly to the network. But no, this DISCO decided to exploit the consumer; putting forward a ridiculous internal policy that holds no foundation in logic. Even a JSS 1 student can calculate the expected bill of Mr Abubakar by simply finding his average consumption and multiplying it by the period of direct connection to the network, in arriving at an appropriate and sane bill. By logical computation, Mr. Abubakar should have an estimated bill of Thirteen Thousand Seven Hundred & Fifty Naira (N13,750), rather than the outrageous bill of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N150,000) issued to him for eleven weeks of electricity supply. Mr Abubakar status had always been an R2 customer, this did not change before – during and after the direct connection to the network. Why did Mr Abubakar get a bill of N150,000 for eleven weeks? What changed? When did Mr Abubakar become a commercial or industrial customer? The continued exploitation and irresponsibility of the DISCOS on estimated billing should equally be met with stringent penalties by the Regulator. We cannot allow private monopolistic businesses to rip off consumers at will, that’s a travesty in itself.

While the DISCOS continue to sound the alarm for a cost-reflective tariff, the consumers are bothered on why they should pay more for poor services. It is worrisome that the system seems to penalize good behavior and ignores bad behavior, and this is because, rather than enumerate their customers and get all metered, the DISCOS have opted to push for an increase in tariff for verifiable customers on their network. The system punishes the just along with the unjust, and the faceless customer goes free. When we have accurate customer data, then we can ascertain for sure the cost-reflectiveness of the current tariff or determine any gap (if it exists). Another angle to it, is to consider a crate of eggs sold at a general price of N1000, if the eggs are delivered in a Hilux Van or 2019 Buggati Divo does not affect its pricing at the market. The egg supplier using the later vehicle cannot transfer the cost of luxury onto the goods sold, else he will sell almost nothing at the market. Rather than hike the tariff, whilst more persons get off the network, the DISCOS should demonstrate some level of prudence and transparency in their operations before sounding any alarm.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE BILL PROHIBITING ESTIMATED BILLING BY DISCOS

The Bill passed by the House of Representatives in January 2019 prohibiting and criminalizing estimated billing by DISCOS with a penalty of one-year jail term and a fine of One Million Naira is a welcome development towards ending the nightmare experienced by consumers. However, the Bill is not an end in itself, more needs to be done especially by the Regulator. The Bill contains some grey areas, e.g. The Bill refers to a regulated fee for obtaining a prepaid meter, what does this mean? Is it a one-off payment? Also, it talks about a jail term, who in the DISCO should be held liable and sentenced in the event of a default? If 100 consumers take a particular DISCO to court, does the jail term run concurrently or do they send 100 DISCO personnel to complete each sentence? The Bill then goes to create a leeway for DISCOS by stating “Where a consumer’s meter cannot be accessed by the service provider then estimated billing can be used”, this by itself creates sufficient ground for DISCOS to continue the fraud called estimated billing. Why should the customer bear the burden for the DISCO's inefficiency?

The Regulator must step in to address this evil called estimated billing, it had done so in the past when two DISCOS were sanctioned for wrongful estimation and over-billing their customers, the two DISCOS were ordered to refund such monies through energy credit. Every bad behavior may not be addressed solely by an ACT of Legislation, that's why the sector desperately needs best practice corporate governance and ethical standards as its guiding principle towards moving out of the current glitch and into a next level of progress.

 THE REGULATOR AS A LAST RESORT

We applaud the leadership of the sector and the Regulator for the commencement of the Meter Assets Provider Scheme (MAPS) which introduces meter asset providers as a new set of service providers in Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry. This new metering scheme is expected to inject investment and expertise into the sector towards putting an end to acute meter shortage and estimated billing. Though some level of progress has been made with the scheme, it is still not yet Uhuru! The Regulator must proactively step-in to ensure a quick ramp up of the scheme, eliminate implementation bottlenecks and coerce the DISCOS towards compliance. DISCOS who are foot-dragging on its implementation should be immediately sanctioned, we have dwelled with the problem of outrageous estimated billing for too long, it is time to make progress.

The Regulator should come up with new performance standards for the DISCOS, to be strictly enforced such that they either shape up or ship out. We need something like the clean-up that happened with the banks in the last two administrations before now at the Apex bank.

 Mr. Abubakar’s complaint is yet to be resolved.

This piece is a personal narrative….and not reflective of any group nor organization.

The author writes from Abuja.