In response to the letter written by Giftson Imasilue of Ige Road, Ogijo, Ogun State in Blueprint about the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company staff charging customers N3,000 to wipe off outstanding debts, we state that this is a case of misinformation as no member of staff of IBEDC is authorised to do so.
To provide a context, it should be noted that Alago/Aige community in Ogijo has been having a series of engagements with the company in order to bring a solution to their persistent power supply issues. These meetings came to fruition in December 2017 when a brand new transformer was procured and installed for the community. Before the installation of the new transformer, the people of the town had accrued a lot of debts and as such, many of them had had their accounts deactivated due to their non-performing debts. With the installation of the new transformer, the community leaders agreed with IBEDC that they would settle their debts so as to facilitate more infrastructure investment in the community.
To make the debt-settling exercise easy for our customers, IBEDC decided they only had to pay a minimum of N3,000 of their outstanding debts to have their accounts reactivated and to enjoy power supply. Failure to do so however, would result in the customers being disconnected until they were able to pay and reactivate their accounts. The aforementioned letter is therefore a case of misunderstanding as no member of staff is authorised to clear outstanding debts after a payment of N3,000. IBEDC however reserves the right according to regulation, to disconnect customers that are not paying bills.
Scott Anu,
Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company,
Capital Building, 115 MKO Abiola Way,
Ibadan, Oyo State
