By Soni Ehi Asuelimen
The senseless hawking or dashing of the nation’s electricity power infrastructure to incompetent friends of the cabal government of President Goodluck Jonathan under guise of privatization has now become a huge millstone on the neck of electricity consumers, whose woes have worsened under the cabal of President Mohammadu Buhari.
When next a Fashola tells that electricity woes would be eliminated in six months, know that he or she has swallowed a similar fake assurance of the late Bola Ige under the Obasanjo failed admin, especially, on electricity. I say this because we are facing another election season when gullible electorate would be fooled again on promises that have failed in democracy’s 20 years.
Major headache is why it is so difficult for the tough-for-mouth Buhari administration to implement the policy of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) about three years ago that electricity consumers should reject estimated electricity bills from private electricity distribution firms six months after paying for a prepaid meter. DISCOs have since dared consumers that believed the regulator with mass disconnection of electricity, even disconnecting a community from the transformer they bought with their money. Where is NERC to defend them?
If communities and individuals are being denied the rights not to pay product or service not provided, one would have thought the almightily but impotent federal government would come to the rescue. Not so.
The rogue DISCOs empowered to rob blind the helpless consumers by the siddon-look PMB administration have not only dared and cowed the fickle federal government to submission but also threatened the sissy National Assembly.
The latest is that the national association of DISCOs have threatened anarchy if the unproductive Senate has the liver to finish their proposed bill to criminalize estimated billing rip-off.
Before then, the DISCO cabal had threatened the federal Minister of Works Babatunde Fashola to expect Armageddon if he goes ahead to revoke the privatization deal of unproductive, rogue members. They claimed they have cast iron legal agreement, which makes it impossible for federal government to revoke their contracts, even when they cannot perform the contract of distributing electricity because of all round incompetence in administration, technical, finance. Fashola, a lawyer, threatened to go to court to revoke privatization agreements highly loaded against the government and people of Nigeria. Not their fault.
Aware that failing and underperforming DISCOs may be hard to throw away, government provoked a prepaid meter bypass. It licensed fresh meter supply companies to supply meters independently of DISCOs. The government explanation was that DISCOs were licensed to distribute electricity only and have no monopoly of distributing meters.
The DISCO cabal reacted angrily that government wanted to deny them the rogue freebie of collecting money for unsupplied electricity. There have been open demonstrations countrywide by fleeced electricity consumers who cannot be saved from a superior cabal or collocated cabal with government to CHANGE lives of the electorate from bad to worse.
The DISCO-government tug of war continues while helpless consumers continue paying for unsupplied power and the electorates have lost confidence in democracy and flawed electoral process to change failed politicians.
Worse now is that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company that handles Ota, Ogun State, is giving this government a bad name. They told government they have no money to buy and distribute prepaid meters and government approved a policy to collect money from interested consumers. Three years after collecting N26000 for unsupplied meters, it raised the cost to N48000 before FG stopped such pay down in view of the rip off.
Sadly, IbEDC has raised fresh payment for prepaid meters to N60000 in April 2018 and promised immediate supply when those who paid three years ago are still on the waiting list. In fact, IbEDC has arrogantly dared helpless consumers in Ota that paid for meters to await Fashola government meters. What IbEDC is telling those who have ears to hear is that waiting for Buhari administration to compel DISCOs to supply prepaid meters paid for three years ago is living in fool’s paradise.
What else did we expect other that failure and thievery when the owner of IbEDC forked out N2 billion in 2014 for the reelection of Jonathan in 2015; an amount sufficient to provide prepaid meters to the states donated to him, though the firm lacked competence in finance, administration, and technical knowhow.
It was because of these deficiencies that Fashola brought out a policy of independent prepaid meters companies to ease the financial burdens of DISCOs so they could deploy their scarce finance to infrastructure upgrade, including providing transformers, the scarcity of which has made improved generation of electricity remaining undistributed to homes and factories, leading to Buhari’s ‘lazy’ youths.
Yet the DISCOs are resisting government help and government is watching foolishly as the electorate is fleeced and failed politicians expect their votes in next election.
Why is it so difficult for Buhari administration to compel DISCOs to provide prepaid meters for consumers to buy only the electricity they can afford? Is it that the Buhari regime, like that of Jonathan, is expecting 2019 campaign funding from DISCOs and therefore cannot deliver consumers from private sector vultures?
Asuelimen writes viasoniasuelimen@yahoo.com