Blackout: S/E Residents, Business Owners Decry Poor Electricity Supply Amid High Tariff

Within Nigeria Apr 25, 2024

Residents of Enugu state and indeed South East have continued to lament the unprecedented hike in Electricity bill amid constant blackout in the region.

According to the residents, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company, EEDC has continued to deny them of electricity while issuing outrageous bill on monthly basis.

Findings by WITHIN NIGERIA showed that every month, the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company kept on increasing their tariff even with epileptic power supply.

At Enugu road, Nsukka Enugu state, one of the customers Emmanuel Mbah who spoke to our reporter explained that the situation is becoming unbearable.

According to Mr. Mbah, a welder at Enugu road, it is unfortunate that they for services they didn’t utilize.

“For now, I pay N25,000 every month in my shop but I hardly use electricity for two hours every day.”

Lamenting further, Mr. Mbah said that ” this is coming at a time when a litre of diesel is N1600. It is a very unfortunate situation for us in the business. If the price of diesel was cheap, I would have forgotten about EEDC.”

Mbah also stated that he is staying in a public compound and as such pays N3000 every month for electricity, making it N28000 every month only for electricity.

At Adani, Uzo-Uwani local government area of Enugu state, one of the residents told WITHIN NIGERIA that the situation is even worse than that of Nsukka town.

According to our source, “we pay N1000 bill per room for residential house, while shops pay N5000 every month. The worst aspect of it is that for one full month, you hardly get electricity for four days, yet you must pay that utility bill.”

Stressing further, our source who preferred anonymity stated that “it is a community billing system and so, whether you had electricity or not, you must pay for it.”

The source who said he was operating a restaurant was forced to pack out from the town because he couldn’t afford to stay where there was no electricity to freeze his drinks and preserve his food.

He said he couldn’t be buying petroleum everyday to power his generator set at an exorbitant price of N800/per litre that it was sold in the town.

Again at Port Harcourt road, Aba, Abia state, one of the business owners who gave his name as Chijioke Nnanna told our reporter that the current black out being experienced in the state has literally put his business on the edge.

Mr. Nnanna, a dry cleaner in the area further narrated that since this year, we have not had five hours nonstop electricity supply. We have being suffering and our businesses which depend heavily on electricity supply are on the edge.

Stating further he said thatwe cannot afford to be buying fuel at N800 per litre to run the business. Our businesses are dying and the worse is that even with none supply of electricity, the EEDC are still bringing high electricity bill to us.

IMSA summons EEDC

However, as the situation continued to worsen, the Imo state House of Assembly on February 22 summoned the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company to answer some questions on the ugly trend.

This is even as the state Assembly called on Governor Hope Uzodimma to direct ministries to embark on massive awareness to reduce heat waves.

The order was made following a motion by the member representing Mbaitoli state constituency, Hon Innocent Ikpamezie to ameliorate the effect of heat wave and high temperature prevalent in Imo.

The House directed the ministry of health and information to collaborate to sensitize the public on ways to tackle the heat, how to detect signs of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and foster measures to adopt to avoid casualties

The Assembly also directed the ministries of agriculture and environment to embark on massive tree planting exercises as a long-term measure to combat heat and achieve an eco-friendly environment

Ikpamezie, who is the committee chairman on Environment said the heat condition would have ameliorated if EEDCs supply of electricity had been optimal, even as he regretted that people were unable to use cooling devices due to outage.

According to him, several residents had taken to sleeping outside, in the open to escape the ravaging heat.

He said Imo state is always in darkness and this has led to massive destruction of refrigerated food items and other perishable foods. Meanwhile, there is no reasonable information emanating from EEDC as to the reason for this perennial black out.

Though the IMSA didn’t specify or give the Electricity Distribution Company the ultimatum as to when they should appear before them, WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that the summon was a clear manifestation of the magnitude of the black out being experienced in the zone at the moment.

The EEDC attributed the situation to low energy generation, which has resulted in a drop in power supply availability generally.

The Head, Corporate Communications, EEDC, Mr Emeka Ezeh, made this disclosure in a statement penultimate Monday.

Ezeh, however, urged residents of the zone to bear with the company.

He said the development has resulted in low generation, leading to a reduction in the quantum of daily megawatt hour (MWH) of energy allocated to distribution companies nationwide, thereby impacting the quality of service to its customers.

We understand the inconveniences this situation has caused our esteemed customers and appeal for their understanding as it is beyond us.

We can only distribute what is allocated to us, he said.

According to him, efforts were being made by the various stakeholders in the power sector to address this issue, and we hope this yields positive results so that normal distribution will return.

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Visit News Source