Billing Scam Rocks EEDC Abakaliki

Petitions are flying to the office of the Consumer Protection Council in Abakaliki Ebonyi state over series of billing scam by officials of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Council EEDC in the state capital.

The office of the EEDC in Awolowo street Abakaliki is inundated daily by consumers who are disclaiming the outrageous bills by the company in the name of power distribution. This scam has been going on using meter reading officials and computer entry and billing managers of the EEDC who remove the meter numbers of residences from the computer system in order to inflict ‘Estimated charges’ that run into several thousands of Naira on the affected houses.

Many electricity consumers are asking why Pre-Paid meters as legally demanded are largely unavailable in the state capital, warranting unscrupulous managers and officials of the EEDC to resort to illegal ‘Estimated charges’ even on residence that have regular meters installed in them. A consumer lamented that for the past two years he has been going to the office of the EEDC in Abakaliki asking for the Pre-Paid meters as promised by the company only to be told each time that the meters will be available at some future date.

The EEDC is afraid that the installation of Pre-Paid meters will whittle their revenue since billing under Prepaid is ‘pay as you use.’ Electricity is virtually non existent in many parts of the capital supposedly connected to the grid, and consumers have frequently been asked to contribute for the purchase of power transformers to serve their areas. It is considered with epileptic distribution of power EEDC is unable to sustain the much needed revenue to pay workers’ salaries.

Many residences are therefore billed huge sums of money in the name of ‘Estimated charges’ because the legal amount generated from meter reading is paltry where power supply is deficient.

The Consumer Protection council at Ezza Road Abakaliki confirms that the office has been receiving several complaints on the extortion bills by the EEDC in Abakaliki Ebonyi state which has been forwarded to the regional office in Anambra state for investigation.