By Correspondent in Lokoja.
Electricity consumers in Lokoja and its environs in kogi state have continued to throng the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company AEDC Office in Lokoja to purchase prepaid meters, to cut off from what they described as ever increasing electricity bill from AEDC.
The Correspondent of The Reporters in Lokoja who visited the office, located at Murtala Mohammed road, reports that many customers were seen sitting waiting for their turn to purchase the equipment, not minding the high cost put at N63,061.32k per single phase and N117,910.69k for three-phase respectively.
One of such consumers,Mr Peter Ibrahim, told our correspondent in an interview that his monthly electricity bill jumped from N3,500 for his three-bedroom flat, to N7,851 within three months, describing the increase as “outrageous”.
“Where do they expect me to get money to be paying such crazy bill every month, when I have other family responsibilities demanding my financial attention,”he asked.
Another customer, Alhaji Yahaha Abubakar, who expressed concern that the price of prepaid meters had skyrocketed from about N30,00, N69,061.32k for single phase recently, said he preferred buying the equipment than paying more than N8,000 every month.
” However, I must say that I am buying the prepaid meter with tears as I have to pay through nose to put to rest the idea of paying high electricity bill every month.
“The situation now is that,you pay more for electricity not consumed, as an average electricity is cut up in the cubweb of power outage,poor energy supply, coupled with constant rationing of light with social and economic consequences in the life of the public,” he noted.
Abubakar argued that apart saving light consumers from excessive in crease in the monthly electricity bill, prepaid meters would instil discipline in them,the use of electricity,check wastage in energy consumption and conserve it for other uses in the country.
The Reporters recalls that the federal government,on November 15, 2021, disclosed that Nigerians would pay additional N13,766 and N26,829 respectively to buy single-phase and three-phase pre-paid meters from the eleven Distribution Companies, DISCOs in the country.
A circular issued in Abuja by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission,( NERC), the regulator increase the price of a single-phase meter from N44,896.17 to a revised price of N58,661.69 and raised that of a three-phase meter from N82,855.19 to a revised rate of N109,684.36.
Prepaid meters.
However, our Correspondent gathered that the current prepaid meters are being sold by companies that produced them, directly to the consumers at N63,061.32k for one phase and the three-phase at N117,910.69k.
Edited by Dada Ahmed.