We need media assistance to help our community stop the frustration and oppressive system of IKEDC.
Just yesterday, some houses in Oworonshoki prevented IKEDC from disconnecting their electricity because they came to disconnect without issuing a disconnection order. IKEDC continues to bill unmetered customers based on estimates instead of using NERC’s capped billing as enshrined in the Customer Protection Regulation 2023. Even when NERC issued Order No/NERC/197/2020 to protect unmetered customers from arbitrary billing, IKEDC refuses to comply. This order caps estimated bills for unmetered customers based on the average consumption of metered customers on a feeder.
The reason they are not issuing a disconnection order is that they are disconnecting houses based on unwired accounts they illegally created for most unmetered houses in the community without their consent. IKEDC created extra accounts for houses without their consent. These accounts do not have any wires connected to them, and yet they want to enforce the creation of more accounts without providing meters. Knowing that this disconnection procedure is against NERC regulations and illegal, they choose not to issue disconnection orders for the account separation they are trying to enforce.
How would you disconnect a wired account based on debt on an unwired account you illegally created for customer?
NERC customer protection regulations compel IKEDC to issue a disconnection order before disconnecting customers.
Despite NERC’s Order No/NERC/197/2020, which caps estimated bills for unmetered customers based on the average consumption of metered customers on a feeder, IKEDC refuses to comply. Moreover, they have created extra accounts for houses without consent, which are not connected to any wires. They are now attempting to enforce these illegal accounts on residents to make more money.
The average monthly CAP billing for the two feeders in Oworonshoki (Oriola and Balogun feeders) is between 500Kwh – 570Kwh. IKEDC has not adhered to this regulation, giving several unmetered apartments a consumption value over 2000Kwh on their main account and a consumption value of over 700Kwh on extra accounts illegally opened by IKEDC. If IKEDC had adhered to NERC’s billing CAP of an average of 550Kwh, each meter number should not exceed 550Kwh x 45.8 = N25,190. By the time we add tax and other costs, the highest bill a house should get should not exceed N27,000 for a Non-MD customer.
Aside from estimated billing and forceful account separation, several houses in Oworonshoki were placed on the MD 1 tariff. Most of these houses have less than 15 rooms connected to the account and have been illegally placed on the MD 1 tariff for over 8 years. The Oworonshoki Electricity Forum has questioned this tariff placement of customers on MD 1 on several occasions, and IKEDC has not provided an answer or rectified these issues. In the FAQ section on IKEDC’s website, it is clearly stated that a customer should be placed on MD 1 only if they have the ability to use a load of up to 45KVA and/or are connected to a dedicated transformer. Oworonshoki is strictly residential, mostly dominated by poor to average income earners. All the houses placed on the MD 1 tariff are residential, and it’s practically impossible for them to use a load up to 20Kva, not to mention the 45KVA benchmark as written on IKEDC’s website in the FAQ section. We have urged IKEDC to do a tariff reclassification for all unmetered customers placed on MD 1 and refund them the difference in tariff for the number of years they have been illegally placed on the wrong tariff.
Seun Gbogboade writes from Oworonshoki, Kosofe, Lagos.