EEDC educate customers on energy management under Band tariff system
The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) says the current tariff is a fallout from the Service Based Tariff (SBT) which was introduced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in 2020.
This is part of measures to ensure that distribution companies deliver efficient services to customers.
The Head Corporate Communications of EEDC, Mr Emeka Ezeh told newsmen in Awka on Wednesday that the introduction of SBT gave rise to the various service bands (Bands A, B, C, D and E) with their respective minimum hours of availability to ensure customers got value for the service they paid for.
EEDC appealed to customers within its network to bear with the company as the Band-A tariff was not the making of distribution companies but a regulatory issue.
He said the Federal Government’s decision to remove electricity subsidy from the tariff paid by Band “A” customers made them pay more for electricity.
“As a result of this development, customers who were paying N71.00 per kilowatt hour before the subsidy removal now pay N209.50 per kilowatt hour. This is seen in the energy units these customers get whenever they vend or recharge their meters.
“Unfortunately, some of our customers are finding it difficult to come to terms with this reality, thereby resorting to peddling baseless and misleading allegations against EEDC,” he said.
Ezeh said EEDC had been investing in network infrastructure and migrating more of their feeders to the upper bands for better efficiency in service delivery.
He regretted that some customers whose feeders were migrated to Band “A” were beginning to vent their frustration on the company’s staff who were sometimes assaulted because of the change in tariff.
He appealed for patience as effort was on to close the metering gap for customers in the Band “A” feeders, noting that about 13, 614 customers under the category were being metered free of charge under the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) scheme,
“We therefore, appeal to our customers to appreciate the situation and understand that it is beyond EEDC.
“We encourage our customers to imbibe energy management culture by turning off appliances when they are not in use and also use energy saving appliances in order to control their cost of energy.
“We are hopeful that more customers will be metered under the Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), a World Bank assisted initiative aimed at closing the metering gap in the power sector,” he said.