Estimated Billing: Sharada Small Scale Customers Finally Embrace Metering

By Umar Isa

Kano Electricity DistributionCompany (KEDCO) says Sharada Small Scale Customers have finally accepted metering after three attempts, contrary to insinuations that the Distribution Companies (DISCOs) were comfortable with estimated billing which is responsible for low metering of electricity customers in Nigeria.

The firm’s spokesman, Mohammed Kandi, on Monday said the Federal Government through Nigerian Electricity RegulatoryCommission (NERC) mandated all DISCOs to meter customers in their networks, which he said, was also part of the performance agreement entered into after privatization of the power sector in 2013.

Kandi disclosed in a statement that KEDCO’s resolve to pursue its metering plans rigorously was in compliance with the directive of NERC to bridged the wide metering gap in the country.

He also informed that, through the intervention of Kano State Commissioner for Commerce and Industries, AhmedRabiu, the resisting customers who were earlier disconnected for non–compliancehave now been reconnected.       

The KEDCO spokesman, however, said the duo of Alhaji Baita and Bashir Sagagi, leaders of the Sharada Small Scale industrial area, alluded to the fact that there members were not properly briefed on modalities of the meter functionality and its wider advantages in their businesses.

But, Kandi quoted the Kano Industrial Regional Manager in the company, Awwalu Yushau as saying “in addition to the several meetings with the leadership of Sharada Small Scale area, who accepted metering based on the information made available to them, .”

“We took awareness campaign to customers in the area before we commenced metering operations, but to my greatest surprise, we met serious resistance from customers who claimed they hadn’t been informed of the metering exercise by their leaders,” Yushau said.

According to the RM, “the company would no longer tolerate the huge loses recorded due to energy theft on the the Sharada/Dangote feeder which amounts to N80 million in a month.”