Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company Plc has said that host communities must pay for electricity supplied to their areas, as the company was not a charity organisation but a privatized business entity.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of PHED Plc, Dr Benson Uwheru, lamented that many communities in its franchise area were getting power, but unwilling to pay for the supply, particularly Afam community in Oyigbo, Rivers State which owes the Disco a debt of over N31.5billion.
Uwheru speaking at the 10th anniversary ceremony of PHED held in Port Harcourt, said over N200billion debt was being owed by government Ministries, Department and Agencies across the four states of its franchise, namely Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River and Rivers State.
He also listed the challenges facing the company including energy theft, vandalism of key electricity infrastructures, such as transformers and cables as well as legacy liabilities inherited from defunct NEPA and PHCN.
“Many communities use power but don’t want to pay for it. We have a couple of communities in Bayelsa state, the Itu community in Akwa Ibom, they all use power but they don’t want to pay for it.
“So when you look at our billed energy and our collection, you will find out that there is a huge gap. So it ties together the challenge of power distribution, where people want power but don’t want to pay for it; so how do we remain in business?
“The Afam issue transcends privatization, they are historical issues and legacy issues, but it has aggravated with time. Every month at least N400million worth of energy goes to Afam, you can multiply that by 12 months.
“The debt of MDAs is over N200 billion. My appeal is that all state governments within our franchise will find a way to ensure that their MDAs are fully metered and pay for electricity supplied.
“It’s just an entitlement mentality, there is no contract that we entered into that said any community will enjoy free power and that’s a misconception and wrong perception which must be discouraged. Electricity supply is a service designed to be paid for and so those who use it must pay for it.”
The PHED boss also appealed to all its customers to always pay for electricity supply, saying that bill payment by electricity users remains the only way the company can distribute power for all and also remain in business.
On revenue growth, Uwheru said the company under his watch has achieved over 60 per cent revenue growth in the last year, noting that he met a revenue of N4.6 billion and has been able to increase it to N7 billion per month.
“This is a privatized company. How do we return value to the private owners of the company? Today the tariff is not cost-reflective. The power sector is riddled with a lot of challenges, vandalism is a big challenge.
“The number of transformers that are vandalised every week is a huge challenge in this sector. How do you do business when enemies continue to invade the network and cart away key network infrastructure like transformers and cables? We also have a weak network infrastructure which needs to be optimized for us to be able to distribute power to all. Indeed, the last 10 years have been riddled with challenges as well as opportunities.
“Some of the challenges we have are not entirely from us, but third parties. We have constraints with gas; the gas supply is not enough, also the issue of foreign exchange, how do you pay for gas that is denominated in foreign currency considering the exchange rate. We also have constraints from limitations from transmission, but since the Discos are at the last chain of the industry, we are always at the receiving end.”
