Tension is currently mounting high among residents of Anambra state due to over-estimated billing and epileptic power supply by the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC).
Despite huge bills charged to most customers monthly through billing estimation, the power supply is normally epileptic and, when available, cannot even power refrigerators or charge phone batteries.
Worst still, customers must pay for all electricity supply equipment, including prepaid meters, electric poles, cables, transformers, and cable separators, whenever required.
A popular human rights activist and co-orricity Consumers Right Network, Com co-ordinatorrade Osita Obi, decried the situation, saying, “I am in band A, but the power supply hardly rotates my fan. I cannot refrigerate with it. Sometimes, it doesn’t charge my phone battery. I recharge with N40,000 monthly because I have a prepaid meter.
“The sad situation is that almost all the equipment associated with the electricity supply in Anambra state is obsolete, including transformers, cables, poles, etc. EEDC cannot even provide a standard separator, talk more, providing a transformer, poles, cable wherever needed to be replaced “.
Also, reacting to the poor state of power supply, a resident, Mr Emeka Ral, told LEADERSHIP, “For seven months now (since September 2024), our transformer at Okwukwu area of Amansea, Awka-North local government area was built, so we have been perpetual darkness.
This is an entire community that has thousands of residents. We have reported several to the officers of the EEDC at their Awka office, and they have always told us that we should calm down and that they are at it. But up till today, we are still in darkness “.
LEADERSHIP, however, observed that electricity consumers in the state had created a WhatsApp platform tagged “Electricity Consumers Rights Network (ECRN), and also added some EEDC senior staff members where they discuss the various power supply challenges they are experiencing and urge the EEDC to redress them.
