Valentine Okafor
Two members of the Abia State House of Assembly have lauded Aba Power for the utility’s ongoing aggressive distribution of smart meters in its coverage area.
Aaron Uzodike, Chairman of the state legislative Committee on Power and Utilities, and Uche Onye, a member of the Committee, made the commendation in two separate interviews with journalists after visiting the Aba Power headquarters in the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba to inspect the first batch of 20,000 smart meters from China which are being distributed as the company resumed its free mass meter roll-out last week.
“We can’t deny the evidence of our own eyes”, Uzodike stated. “They are not just 20,000 meters available as Aba Power pledged to members of the Abia State House of Assembly for distribution within one month when we invited them on two occasions to Umuahia, but are also state of the art.
“What is more, they are being given to customers free of charge, though it is costing Aba Power at least N3.4 billion for every 20,000 units of one-phase meter and three-phase meter”.
The Committee chairman on Power and Public Utilities explained that the electricity company was invited to the House of Assembly following a petition by three persons purporting to be members of the Abia Electricity Consumers Forum, an unregistered organization, claiming that there were not enough prepaid meters in the territory covered by the utility.
“We are delighted that the 20,000 smart meters being distributed now are from just one firm called Eves Metering, a Chinese firm”, the legislator remarked.
Three other metering firms are supplying at least 20,000 units each, and they include an indigenous one named Kayz Consortium which has moved its machines and equipment to the Geometric Power premises in the Osisioma Industrial Layout to start assembling them there.
Uzodike praised Geometric Power for assisting Kayz to airfreight the meters which increased the costs of providing the smart meters, but noted that “it is a manifestation of the seriousness which the Geometric Power attaches to the smart meter installation project”.
On his part, The Honourable Onye expressed satisfaction that Aba Power has set a target of providing smart meters to 100,000 customers this year alone.
He welcomed the new system of providing a compound of “four flats with four state-of-the-art prepaid meters and a compound of eight flats with eight smart meters, unlike in the past when the entire compound would be saddled with only one meter, thus creating controversy, confusion and disagreements which sometimes resulted in physical fights by the flat occupants.
“The new system makes for transparency and responsible use of electricity”.
Onye also commended Aba Power for providing meters to customers on “a feeder by feeder basis and from end to end because it makes for orderliness, transparency, trust, and peace”.
Customers on the Aba-Owerri Feeder are being given free meters, and the areas under it include Umuode Village, Tonimas Junction, the Old Aba-Owerri Expressway, and the Power Line Area.
There are 31 feeders in the Aba Ring-fenced Area comprising nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State. Four other feeders were fully provided with smart meters during the first phase of the mass