Residents of Maiduguri metropolis and Jere Local Government Areas of Borno State have condemned the alleged outrageous and crazy electricity bills sent to them by the Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC).
Some of the residents who spoke with the Daily Trust alleged that the billing system in the metropolis and environs was exploitative, considering the nature of electricity consumption in the state capital.
Mr. Mutiu Okunade said that poor services were also their lots after several complaints.
“It is amazed that I started paying N5,000 monthly, two month ago they brought N8,000 and this month N13,000 , am I baking bread? Even when we do not use electrical appliances that consume high rate of electricity.
“Is N13,000 per month for electricity bill not outrageous? We are helpless because the government of the day can’t protect us from this daylight robbery called YDEC.” Mutiu said.
Another resident of Bulunkutu area, Bukar Mohammed alleged that YDEC only distributed outrageous bills and deliberately refused to supply the residents with prepaid meters after they had paid.
“We have been thrown into perpetual darkness as a result of the refusal of YEDC to repair a faulty transformer serving the Buluntutu area because of their inability to pay the skyrocketing bills.
“We are appealing to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and other relevant agencies to urgently intervene with a view to extricating us from the alleged exploitative grip of the YDEC. We have paid for prepaid meters for more than 1 year but we are yet to get it, because we can’t continue paying these crazy bills,” Mohammed said.
When contacted, the Area Manager Yerwa Business Units, Hajiya Zainab Hassan claimed that YEDC didn’t over-bill her customers, saying energy has increased tremendously in Maiduguri and environs.
“It is not true, We have methodology of billing according to NERC; last two months, we received energy worth around 250,000,000 here in Maiduguri and we have to distribute accordingly to our customers base on our feeders. Then, this month Yerwa alone collected energy worth 184,000,000 so we have to increase the bills. Once the energy dropped the bill will automatically drop, so our billing base according to energy will gives.
“The billing is from energy we received from national grids, and energy we received from transmission is being metered according to types of our customers, we have maximum demand, ordinary customers and of different categories such as residential, commercial and industrial on these feeders we categorized and bills them according to energy received.”Hajiya Zainab claimed.
She also appealed to the customers to settle all their outstanding bills to enable YEDC to serve them better.
Source: Daily Trust
