“….so that the DISCOs can concentrate on their core function, that is, transporting power. It is not their function to supply meters’, said the super minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola on Channels TV Sunrise Daily Programme aired on Wednesday and repeated yesterday Thursday. Could this have been what was packaged at the time of formation of the DISCOs? Or the minister didn’t quite get the briefing he was given? If the former, the arrangement must be considered very strange.
Worse still, the minister also said without apologizing on behalf of the DISCOs or giving any explanation whatsoever that the DISCOs don’t have the capacity to supply meters. What this means is that a trader got prepared to buy measured goods and sell them unmeasured!
What a strange business plan? Can you imagine a rice or beans trader who buys his goods in measured quantities and sells them unmeasured telling his customers that it is not his business to measure the goods and doesn’t have the capacity to provide the measuring device? Also in the second assertion of the minister, he mentioned ‘supply of meters’. To whom are the DISCOs supposed to supply the meters. This is another misplacement. You don’t supply your operational to your customer.
Now get this clear! DISCOs are nothing but traders. They buy electricity, and they sell electricity. It is their business to determine what quantity of electricity they sell, and consequently, how much money they deserve to be paid for the good they have supplied. There are many services on the drawing board around the world which cannot leave the drawing board yet because one or both of two things are yet to be developed:
1. an effective and acceptable way of determining what amount of service is delivered and consequently its pricing and
2. the ability to promptly deny the consumer the service on default.
The application of estimated billing is an acceptable practice but must be subject to some simple rules which
should include:
1. It should be considered an interim measure.
2. A standard, acceptable method of load estimation should be employed.
To simply endlessly dole out estimated (crazy bills) bills to thousands of customers must be considered a brazen insult on Nigerians. This impunity is only possible in a country like Nigeria where citizens are infinitely patient with service providers especially where government is involved.
Electricity and similar services such as gas, water, etc, in most other countries are delivered with measuring devices which are normally the exclusive preserve of the supply authorities. The cost of metering is usually factored into the calculation of the selling price of the service being delivered. Considering the long history of impunity in all directions the electricity supply authorities in Nigeria have been known for, it is doubtful if, the cost of metering was left out in the determination of electricity selling price.
If it wasn’t left out, it means the consumers have been paying for meters without having the meters. We haven’t forgotten the numerous cases of consumers buying and installing electricity supply facilities such as poles, conductors, transformers and supply cables and the “almighty” NEPA would simply take over the installation without any compensation whatsoever to the affected consumers.
The super minister, whom most of us believe is able, should do everything possible to rectify this anomaly while trying to solve permanently the persistent power problem once and for all.
