Fraudulent Billing Of Electricity Consumers, Causes Uproar In PH
The Bible says that, “when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice”. The euphoria that greeted the privatization of PHCN by the president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, towards the tail- end of last year was unprecedented , as many Nigerians, both old and young thumbed up for Mr. president, believing that this gesture by now, would have ushered in developments in every sectors of our economy. But alas, the Nigerian factor, corruption has ambushed this goodwill that today, the story of PHCN and Power consortium, in Rivers State be likened to putting a new wine in an old wine- skin.
Although, Nigerians are aware that corruption and impunity is institutionalized in NEPA/PHCN, the case of Port Harcourt, an oil city, where like police, Staffers of NEPA/PHCN in other states bribe their superiors ,so that they be transferred to port Harcourt, to cheat and enrich their personal Bank accounts. Nigerians are also aware that NEPAIPHCN is an institution where people are compelled to pay for services not used whether you like it or not. But this corruption and impunity has now assumed an alarming rate with the 4 Power consortium, the new owners of PHCN in Rivers State, which indications reveals that they are cash strapped but has resorted to exploiting consumers to enable them mop up reasonable funds quick before complaints from people in government will begin to trickle in. To achieve this, each station and marketers were giving targeted amount to realize.
This however, accounted to why every consumer in Port Harcourt, were given huge estimated charges last month. But the consumers aware that there is no justification for these high bills, bearing in mind that the PHCN workers don’t even bother themselves to go round and in all honesty read meters neither do they have accurate computerized system to aid them in this regard, so efforts by these consumers to question the bills were rebuffed by the PHCN workers at their lkwerre Road Mile 1 station office in Diobu. And to ensure they achieve their aim, the consumers were immediately harassed to submission as PHCN authorities there pronto embarked on mass disconnection. Most areas affected by this problems are Mile 2, Mile 3, Mile4 Elepranwa, Elelenwo and many other places.
Interestingly, these bottled anger later exploded on Wednesday, 2 day of April, as some resident of Mile 2 and Mile 3 protested against the PHCN/4Power consortium’s highhandedness, several days of total black-out and the said fraudulent billings. However, the protest became short-lived as miscreants cashed into it and began to destroy the PHCN properties at their lkwerre Road office before they were intercepted by the men of police force, who tear gassed and apprehended some of them.
Although, we are aware of the saying that, “ what belongs to everyone , often ends up as no one’s responsibility ,“ Nigerians should speak out so that this cheating and other negative vices seen in that industry be exposed and terminated. Many had also expected that with its privatization and acquisition now, that the bad eggs in that industry should have been shown the way out, while those retained should undergo some stages of orientation. This ultimately would bring sanity and restoration of public confidence in this beleaguered industry.
Written by
Dave Chukwu
