The House of Representatives’ bold initiative to criminalise estimated billing, a fraudulent practice deliberately employed by unconscionable power distribution companies to fleece their customers, is a welcome intervention. Doubtlessly, in the absence of strong regulation, the power companies need the most stringent legal measures to jolt them out of their lethargy. Sponsored by the Majority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, the bill seeks to protect the right of every electricity consumer to be metered within 30 days of applying for the device. It also proposes different categories of penalties, ranging from N500,000 to N1 million fines and a jail term of six months, for failure to comply or for illegally disconnecting a consumer on the grounds of estimated billing. In some cases, both the jail term and the fines await offenders.
It is, however, surprising that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission is already moving against the legislation. In a swift reaction to the bill, NERC’s Commissioner, Finance and Management Services, Nathan Shatti, said that efforts had already been initiated by the commission to stall the bill in favour of another that would criminalise energy theft and meter bypass. According to him, the issue of metering could be addressed through regulation. But he failed to state why regulation had not been able to address such a fundamental issue more than one decade after NERC was established.
Besides, it is important for NERC to understand that it was not established to defend the DisCos, but to ensure equity between electricity providers and the consumers. This is a duty that the Nigerian Communications Commission performs very effectively in the telecommunications sector. If, for instance, NERC is advocating the criminalisation of power theft and meter bypass, why should that stop the criminalisation of estimated billing? Both are not mutually exclusive; there can be laws for power theft, meter bypass and estimated billing, all at the same time. After all, for a meter bypass to take place, there has to be a meter, to start with.
It is now close to five years since the ownership of the inefficient national power utility, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, changed hands in a questionable privatisation deal in 2013. Yet, very little has been done to dump the dubious practice of estimated billing, which was inherited from the defunct utility, for a more transparent prepaid metering system. Officially, it is estimated that only 3.45 million customers, less than 50 per cent of the 7.5 million electricity consumers identified across the country, have been provided with prepaid meters.
The corollary is that over four million Nigerians remain unmetered and are thus condemned to the heist called estimated billing. Relating his experience on the floor of the National Assembly, the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, said that his house in Bauchi that was unoccupied had to be disconnected after he got estimated bills as high as N80,000 per month for electricity that was never consumed. This is barefaced fraud and that is what many Nigerians are exposed to every day by the refusal of the DisCos to provide them with prepaid meters.
Unfortunately, the regulatory authority, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, has been very ineffective in forcing the pace of attitudinal change among the power firms. Many deadlines for mass metering of customers have been set and flouted with impunity by the pampered DisCos, to which NERC has not had any robust or effective response. Thus, providing meters to customers has become a privilege instead of a matter of routine.
Apart from these half-hearted and ineffectual directives that occasionally come from the regulator, which are rarely obeyed, this legislative option by the House remains perhaps the most far-reaching effort at protecting consumers against the sharp practices of the DisCos. If passed into law, the long-suffering consumers will be insulated from the tyranny of the DisCos, who spend considerable length of their time in fighting for tariff increase, but are always clueless and lame when it comes to providing electricity consumers with a metering device that will ensure they no longer pay for energy they did not consume.
There is no doubting the fact that the non-provision of prepaid meters has encouraged laziness among the power firms, who know that, whether electricity is provided or not, they would make their money through estimated billing. In places where customers are plunged into darkness as a result of some electrical fault, the response time is not as swift as it should be because the power firms know that their money does not come from their sweat. This is perhaps one of the many issues that such a law could tackle. The sense of entitlement that allows them to get away with murder is what should be curbed.
Providing customers with prepaid meters in Nigeria is, therefore, an option that the DisCos have to embrace, both for efficiency and ease of revenue collection. So, any effort that would make this possible, including any legislative action, is fully welcome.
