20 February 2017, Abeokuta – The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company says the erratic power supply at Ijako-Ishaka, Sango, in the Ado Odo/Ota Local Government Area, Ogun State, is a national challenge, and not peculiar to the community.
The firm added that efforts were ongoing to solve the problem.
The company said it had engaged residents of the community in a meeting with a view to resolving the epileptic power in the neighbourhood.
The residents, some of who held lanterns, had stormed IBEDC office in Joju, Sango, on Wednesday, to protest against power outage and overbilling, saying commercial activities had been crippled.
They had lamented that they hardly get 24 hours of power supply in a month, but had to pay between N4,000 and N7,000 bills monthly.
However, the R egional Communications Officer, IBEDC, Regina Adelokun, in a statement said each house was given a monthly bill of N500 for the past six months due to the challenge, adding that the company was working towards improving power supply in the community.
The statement read in part, “As a customer friendly DISCO, we are known to be proactive in community engagement, which has enabled us to operate almost seamlessly, despite scary challenges in most of our coverage areas, including Ijako-Ishaka. As a customer-friendly company, we had earlier engaged the community development association last week, where we explained the issues arising which they were unsatisfied with before the protest was staged on Wednesday.
“We have held several meetings with the community and have explained to them the issues involved with prepaid meter distribution. The delay was due to the forex which affected the contractors supplying the meters. The development stiffened the smooth process of supplying the meters to them by the manufacturers.
“On the alleged high billing; in the last six months, they have never been billed more than N500 per house on the average. Strangely, most members, despite this ridiculously lenient billing, have refused to pay for energy consumed in the last three months, citing epileptic supply.
“It should be reiterated that the erratic power supply affecting the community is a national challenge. But most unfortunately, the affected community has an isolator in their network, whereby other communities on the same Ota industrial feeder such as Owode and Ifo metropolis were affected during and after the 25 days TAT maintenance by Transmission Company of Nigeria in November, 2016.
“After the protest, we took the names and phone numbers of the leaders of the protest with a view to engaging them, to see reason with our effort to serve them better at all times.
- Punch
