The management of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), has reacted to the complaints on social media by residents of Kajola local government area of Oyo State over power outage in the council area.
OYOINSIGHT.COM had reported how residents of the council area, through their youth organizations, vowed not to pay their bills of light is not restored to the area.
IBEDC EXPLAINS OUTAGE, BILLING, TRANSFORMERS AND METERING ISSUES AS COMPLAINED ON SOCIAL MEDIA BY RESIDENTS 0F OKEHO LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC)’s attention has been drawn to a publication on the social media over prolonged power outage, outrageous billing, faulty transformers and the clamour for free meters by residents of Okeho local government under Oyo. In response to the write-up published by the youths of Kajola under the auspices of insideoyo.com, we wish to inform the public that the outage was as a result of a routine maintenance work by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) which commenced on the 14th of July, 2020.
This very vital technical work affected power supply to Iseyin, Ado-Awaye and Saki 33KV feeders which also covers Okeholocal government. The notice of the routine maintenance work by TCN was published via all our social media platforms; Facebook @ibedc_ng, twitter ibedc.ng, Instagram@ibedc.ng or email customercare @ibedc.com and their communities’ leaders phone numbers and contacts – Hon. Ajadi, Messrs. Salami, Abdurrahman, Sikiru and the Community Secretary for theirawareness of the situation. We also stated that power supply shall be restored when the routine work is completed. Power supply has since been restored to many of the areas affected by the routine maintenance work. Okeho residents will enjoy power supply very soon.
On the issue of faulty transformers, these are part of the many albatrosses we inherited from the defunct PHCN but we are resolved to keep the substations working. Also, while we appreciate communities embarking on self-repairs initiatives, we always advise they patronize certified electrical contractors to forestall aggravating their situation, bearing in mind the challenges associated with the lengthy faults-prone feeder feeding the areas. However, our team of engineers are working assiduously daily to keep the areas lighted. Our engagements on these situations attest to this reality.
Concerning the outcry over outrageous billing of the residents, we wish to inform our valued customers and the public that in compliance with the directive by the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to cap our estimated customers, the areas affected by the planned outage and others in these categories and experiences, are being billed accordingly.We also have established billing mechanism to correct any verified wrong bill. Several of such cases have been addressed, our customer care offices are available with a 24/7 email – customercare@ibedc.com and 07001239999 phone line for this purpose.
In addressing the clamour for free meters, IBEDC had at various periods embarked on random free-meter schemes as response to bridge the meter gap and fix problems of obsolete and deprecate meters. However, this is not a metering policy as this cannot meet the increasing meter demand, and that is why NERC registered meter licensees in collaboration with the Discos and came up with the Meter Asset Providers scheme. We therefore enjoin our customers to apply for meters via this scheme to address their meter needs. Our social media platforms are awash with the procedure of obtainment. We have also held several engagements and other media awareness campaigns on the metering scheme that many of our customers are already enjoying even in Okeho.
As a customer-centric organization, we are working franticallywith TCN to ensure that power supply is restored to maintainour customers’ satisfaction and improve revenue for better service delivery. We however, apologize and deeply regret the inconveniences.
IBEDC Management.
