Uche Cecil Izuora
Aba Power Electric Ltd is the only electricity distribution company (DisCo) in Nigeria that has not been penalized for any form of infraction.
This disclosure was made in Awka, Anambra State, by the Nigerian Electricity Consumers Association (NECA), Southeast zone, following its monthly meeting at Trigpoint Hotel, Nibo.
“We are satisfied that Aba Power, Nigeria’s 12th DisCo”, declared the Southeast NECA leaders in a statement signed by Engr Joe Ubani, the chairman, and Comrade Chris Okpara, the secretary, “has achieved this enviable status because of its strict adherence to all the rules and regulations from the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
“We encourage the 11 legacy DisCos inherited from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to learn from Aba Power which interestingly has not benefitted from the billions of naira granted to the 11 DisCos by the Federal Government in form of subsidies and other forms of intervention since the PHCN privatization in November 2013”.
ECAN also lauded the power utility for its ongoing massive free meter rollout which it described as aggressive.
Aba Power is working with four indigenous and foreign companies to install 20,000 smart meters monthly in its ring-fenced area which covers nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State at over N33 billion.
“WE are confident that the firm will meet its target of metering some 100,000 customers this year”, the association stated.
“No DisCo has had such an audacious and aggressive ambition and works extremely hard to realize it”.
Responding to news reports that a member of the House of Representatives, Alozie Ikechi, recently moved a motion requesting the House of Representatives to direct NERC to order Aba Power to review its tariff downwards, ECAN described the Aba Electricity Consumers Forum which wrote a petition to the effect to the member representing the Obingwa/Ugwunagbo/Osisioma Federal Constituency as funny blackmailers and extortionists.
“When they went to the Isiala Ngwa High Court in Abia State last January asking the court to rescind the NERC order on a new tariff for Aba Power, nine months after the electricity regulator had approved a similar tariff for the other 11 DisCos in Nigeria”, remarked the association of electricity consumers, “Justice Enyinnaya Ikpeazu called the group illegal because its unknown to the law.
“On May 21, the Honorable Judge threw out their suit because it was wrong-headed on every count.
“The leaders of the so-called are well known jobless extortionists who openly and endlessly blackmail Aba residents to give money them to fight for them without ever showing how the funds raised were spent”.
The ECAN officers said that if only Ikechi had bothered to conduct a preliminary investigation into the claim of the petitioners, he would have found it easily that the petition “is not worth the paper on which it is written”.
The Southeast electricity consumers advised The Hon Ikechi to borrow a leaf from the Abia State House of Assembly Committee on Power and Public Utilities by visiting the Aba Power premises to see how the utility is leading local and international firms to assemble prepaid meters in Aba which would create “over 35,000 direct and indirect jobs for our people”.