OpeOluwani Akintayo
29 November 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKEDC, has cried out over the refusal of more than 70, 000 of its customers to recharge their prepaid meters in the last one year.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Adeoye Fadeyibi, raised the alarm in a statement on Thursday.
According to him, in spite of EKEDC’s effort in ensuring effective metering within its network to ease customer’s complaints, it noticed that over 70,000 customers had not recharged the pre-paid meter in the last one year.
“Some customers are in the habit of bypassing meter and engaging in energy theft, this has also affected the company negatively. Most of our transformers are being vandalized in some areas which cost the company a huge amount to replace.
He urged consumers to serve as a whistleblower on vandals.
“This is part of the challenges affecting the company, we need to tell ourselves the truth. Consumers should also be our watchdog in their various locations by reporting those engaging in energy theft and equipment vandalism.
“Because the money that was meant to develop other infrastructures has been diverted to repair vandalized equipment,’’ he said.
The managing director said that the Metering Assessment Programme, MAP initiative will go a long way in addressing the metering gap within the network, adding that the company had metered over 150,000 customers.
He said that efforts are being made to address the metering gap with more meters for consumers and the adoption of an interim plan of metering transformers for a more accurate estimation.
