Kelechi 10:11AM

Good morning, please I stay in a block of 10 flats at Rumuigbo. Out of the 10 flats, one person uses a Prepaid and the others use a Postpaid. Out of the 9 people that use Postpaid, 4 or 5 people pay their bills but when the Distribution company comes for disconnection,the go straight to the pole and disconnect everyone including those that have paid and the person using Prepaid. Is that the right thing to do? Up till now, we have been in darkness.

Hi Kelechi. By establishing procedures for connections and disconnections in the Connection & Disconnection Procedures for Electricity Services Regulation (Section 2(2.1)), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has put a stop to mass disconnection i.e. a situation where a group of customers are disconnected just because of a few defaulters, which leads to wrongful disconnections. An Electricity Distribution Company (DisCo) is responsible for identifying specific customers who owe electricity bills, give them a reasonable time to pay their bills, and if all reasonable efforts to make them pay their bills fail, give them a final warning after which a customer shall be subject to disconnection. What PHEDC has done is clearly wrong There are three (3) ways to get it corrected. 1. Write a formal letter to the Business Unit of PHEDC that serves your area and complain about the wrongful disconnection. Endorse a copy of this letter to the Manager, Customer Services at PHEDC head office at Moscow Road. and to the Chairman, NERC Forum Port Harcourt. You can get the Forum address from the list on our home page. Ensure that these letters are properly delivered and acknowledged by all recipients. You may also endorse a copy to the Consumer Protection Council (CPC). 2. Make a complaint directly to the Consumer Protection Council. The CPC has set up an online form (see link below) for consumers who want to make a complaint about a company. The information which you will have to provide are: Name of person making the complaint Contact Address Contact details – Mobile number and email address Name of the company you are complaining about Address of the company/branch you visited Contact details of the company Receipt No. of Product/Service (if you have one) Brief explanation of your complaint Brief explanation of the outcome you want 3. Engage PHEDC and CPC on this via social media. We have found that the CPC has a fairly dynamic and responsive Twitter handle and issues are being resolved on this platform by the minute. To do this, write a short summary of your complaint and tag PHEDC via @officialPHED, CPC via @CPCNig and us via @NEPAwahalaNG. Include your address and meter number in your complaint. The 3rd mode may be your fastest means of getting power restored to your premises, so we recommend that you implement this immediately while not ignoring the other two. We hope this helps.

Admin

May 14, 2018