Lagos Community Tackles PHCN Over ‘Crazy Bills’

Some communities in Lagos have fashioned out ways to address the menace of ‘crazy bills’ and illegal disconnections imposed by officials of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN as the issue has gone beyond a tolerable level.

A healthy co-operation and mutual understanding between communities and the power officials some community leaders believe would help in addressing the incidence of crazy billing and indiscriminate disconnections.

Chairman, Festac Town Resident Association, FTRA Community 1, Dr. Alex Edo, told Vanguard that there has been harmonious work relationship between the community and PHCN officials.

“We have been able to work harmoniously with PHCN here in Festac especially since 2012, when we discovered that we were not getting the results that we ought to have.

“Members of the executive have been able to make PHCN issues our top priority. The first step we took was to stop PHCN from issuing coded bills or crazy bills because we have worked with them since 2012, and we are seriously making sure that the hurdles between PHCN and the consumers will not up.

“Also when a consumer is becoming cunning and doesn’t want to pay his/her bill, we also swing into action to ensure that they pay their bills.

“And where PHCN of course is issuing any crazy bill we also complain to them to regularize it, reverse it. That has worked successfully for us since January 2013 till date I can tell you we have had less than five cases of crazy bills.

Edo blamed the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, the industry regulator for poor regulation, and criticised the failed process for free installations of pre-paid meters to customers across the country.

NERC amended its earlier directive that electricity consumers should not pay for pre-paid meters. Subscribers will now from May according to the regulatory body pay between N25,000 to N50,000 for prepaid meters.