Recession threatens our metering target — Ikeja Electric

Ikeja Electric has said that the current economic recession is having adverse eff ect on its business, especially as it aff ects mass metering programme. Accordingly, it said the constraint has prompted the management to alter its original meter roll-out plan. Th is came as the company lamented huge defi cit in its books owing to customer debt portfolio of over N88 billion which have further hindered efforts to strengthen its infrastructure development. T h e c o m p a n y ’ s Communications Manager, Felix Ofulue, made this known in a media forum in Lagos. He stated that management has engaged local meter vendors to pursue its prepaid meter obligation to customers, adding that with the support of local meter vendors, the company has successfully metered almost all feeder and distribution transformers within its network which would help balance its estimated billing method.

“Th e metered transformers and feeders will help determine the regularity of power supply to customers and will help to prepare bills based on the accurate power supply. So far, we have metered Maximum Demand Customers, MDCs, within the network and they are over 5,000. “Our metering project is challenged at the moment due to fi nancial constraints and because we have to upgrade other supply infrastructure and ensure that the supply chain is not disrupted, there is need to deploy scarce resources in other areas of need so that the entire system does not collapse”, he explained. He, however, assured that Non-Maximum Demand C u s t o m e r s a r e b e i n g considered in the ongoing efforts, adding that at the moment, the company is stepping up efforts to complete metering exercise in Ikeja GRA. Ofulue complained about energy theft which, he said, is impacting on the company’s revenue and urged customers to settle their bills to enable it boost its operations.

Leave a Reply