Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHED, has sensitized her customers on estimated billing, energy efficiency and accessing prepaid meters through the Meter Asset Providers, MAP.
Speaking at a townhall meeting in Port Harcourt, where customers raised concerns about excessive billing, epileptic power supply, access to prepaid meters, etc, the Chief Executive Officer of PHED, Mr Naveen Kapoor, assured that the company has adequate prepaid meters for its customers in Rivers State.
Kapoor, also decried energy theft and non payment of electricity bills by customers, explaining that funds realised from electricity bills are re-injected to improve the system.
He urged customers to report faults to the company, instead of seeking self help, explaining that the company has a 24/7 customer service, even on the social media.
According to him, “There are enough meters available in the system now, and we encourage customers to come for it.
“Whatever we get from customers, we spend on operations and maintenance. If customers do not pay us, how do we get that done? Customers do not complain when thy see their neighbours stealing energy.
“Port Harcourt is supposed to get 247 power supply but network is an issue, because there is paucity of funds to make investment. If we can make investment, there can be 247 of supply but how are we sure the money spent will cme back?
The PHED boss, who personally took the contact details of various complainants, assured that the management will investigate all the claims and complaints made by customers at the townhall meeting.
“We will investigate the various claims and complaints from customers. When people go about replacing poles and transformers on their own, how do we know that their transformers are bad?
“They are not supposed to replace any faulty transformer, but instead report the issue to us. We have a 24hours customers service, we have several channels they can reach our customer care agents, the social media is also there for customers to lodge their complain.”
