Lafia Residents Tackle AEDC Over High Bills, Poor Power Supply

By Rabiu Dogara, Lafia

Barely one year after the commissioning of the 330KV / 132/33KV transmission substation, residents of Lafia municipality in Nasarawa State have alleged that power supply to the area remains  poor.

This is even as they accused the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC)  of exploiting them through high bills.

When on February 22, President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the 330KV / 132/33KV Transmission substation in Akurba-Lafia, Nasarawa State, the expectation of residents of Lafia and its environs was for improved power supply.

But in a petition addressed to the acting chief executive officer/chairman, Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), some residents decried epileptic service and exploitative, uniform estimated billing.

They decried what they termed “bitter experiences and unbecoming attitude of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company” and appealed to the NERC to direct it to live up to its responsibility of providing quality service to the people of Lafia at fair tariff.

“You would recall that President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the 330 KV Lafia power station. Before this station started operation, the 33 KV line in Akwanga was servicing Lafia city. To our utter disappointment, just days after the president commissioned that landmark project, electricity supply to Lafia reverted to what it used to be – massive load shedding cum blackouts. There has not been any marked improvement since then to-date.

“As if this was not depressing enough, AEDC some months ago put out a public advertisement in a national newspaper placing Lafia electricity consumers on Band A. Customers on this Band A are those enjoying 24-hour supply of electricity per day. Needless to inform you sir that we in Lafia city have hardly had 20 hours of electricity daily.

“Instead, the service we are currently enjoying from AEDC is equivalent to that of areas on Band C. Those on Band C are those that are not connected to the national grid or are being serviced by 130kva,” the residents said.

They alleged that AEDC had for some months now been giving every house in Lafia uniform, estimated bills (irrespective of the number of apartments or rooms in each house) which has been rising every other month.

They noted that it started with N10, 000 per month, increasing to over N16, 000 in the latest bill being distributed to residents.

“This is to say the least grossly unfair, exploitative. It is not at all commensurate with the services being provided to us by AEDC.

“In a month, we record more days without electricity than the days we have electricity. AEDC no longer reads the analogue metres in our homes. Rather it resorts to arbitrary, exorbitant, estimated billing of Lafia customers,” they added.

While admitting that there were exceptions which are the houses using prepaid metres,  Lafia residents, in the petition alleged that prepaid metres are hard to come by for Lafia people.

Reacting, the AEDC in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP by its spokesman, Donald Etim, said most customers in Lafia enjoy 20 hours power supply daily, stressing that the commissioning of 330KV / 132/33KV transmission station had significantly improved supply in Lafia and environs.

Etim said with a daily allocation of 20MW, most of the feeders, both 33KV and 11KV, enjoyed reliable, stable power supply of 20 hours and above on good days, and not less than 18 hours daily on bad days.

The AEDC noted that because of the improvement in power supply, Lafia residents are now categorised under tariff Band A and noted that they customers were duly informed via an advert which was done essentially to create awareness in a target community before customers in that community are migrated to a higher tariff band.

He admitted that there was a drop in power supply to Lafia in October from 20MW to an average of 10MW – 15MW daily.

“Expectedly, this had a knock-on effect on supply levels, but certainly not to the low levels portrayed by the petitioners. Again, even this situation has been rectified as allocations to Lafia have increased,” Etim added.

But a cross section of Lafia residents told our correspondent that since the commissioning, there had never been 20 hours power supply in Lafia and  environs with some customers on 11kva feeder allegedly getting less than 8 hours a day due to the non-functioning of the 15MVA substation along Shendam road.

They alleged that the deplorable state of power supply had further compounded the woes of most small and medium enterprises, most of which rely on power to survive.

It was observed that Lafia and its environs started experiencing load shedding in May and not October.  To address the problem, a group, Lafia Electricity Consumers Forum, appealed to NERC to direct the AEDC to make metres available to customers and ensure correct band placement for the residents.