Mkpoikana Udoma
15 March 2017, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt – Troubled by the huge debt owed the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHEDC, the Ogbum nu Abali community in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has inaugurated a five-man committee to ensure residents’ prompt payment of electricity bill.
The electricity payment committee, headed by Mr. Maxwell Hanetu, has already through a vehicle-mounted public address system and a town crier, announced to residents the position of the community towards payment of electricity bills.
A statement by the PHEDC spokesperson, Mr. John Onyi, said the duty of the committee, among others, is to work closely with PHEDC officials and to ensure that any customer within the community disconnected for non-payment of electricity, will not reconnect illegally and if he does, will be fished out by the community.
Onyi, in the statement, also said the support for PHEDC on revenue generation by the community became imperative owing to series of enlightenment meetings between the distribution company and the community arising from protests by the community recently on what the community had termed “poor service delivery and epileptic power supply.”
According to the statement, “In addition, the committee is to further sensitise their community on any challenge encountered by PHEDC in the course of service delivery.
The statement also said after appreciating the challenges of PHEDC, the community realised the enormous task in sustaining the power industry through prompt payment of energy consumed.
