THUR, JAN 02 2020-theG&BJournal- Millions of Benin Electric Distribution Company Plc (BEDC) customers started the New Year in distress and in darkness after the company mischievously switched of electricity 12 am New Year’s day.
Electricity was out for customers of all the areas the company covered, who took to social media to bemoan the outage. Large parts of Delta State were left without light the entire day on the 1st of January 2020.
In Edo, Ondo and Ekiti States residents bemoaned the discomfort and many customers the G&BJournal spoke to had a unanimous view-revoke their licence and try the company’s management for electricity fraud and failure to deliver electricity to its franchise states.
The performance of BEDC since it took over the distribution franchise in 2013 has been nothing but abysmal and the company has offered no explanation for their incompetence or inability to provide electricity despite their penchant for ‘crazy bills’. In all these years customer’s protest has dogged the company. They are frequently rated worst performing Disco in the country.
In October 2019, members of the Edo Civil Society Organisations (EDOSCO) implored the Federal Government not to renew the company’s licence on expiration because it has never met expectations of customers or its own targets. In Delta, Ondo and Ekiti States, customers now beg the federal government to relieve them of ‘’this BEDC burden in the New Year.’’ Numerous other organisations including the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has advised the federal government to cut down financial support to the underperforming electricity distribution companies that include the BEDC.
The BEDC epitomises failure and indulges in violation of regulators rules. They take advantage of customers’ vulnerability to their rights. They act in manner detrimental to interest of clients, Act in a manner detrimental to public interest and they never look like an entity willing to properly install any functional meter to households. They have no transparent electricity billing. They have an army of touts harassing consumers to pay illegal bills and who wantonly cut off electricity cables in guise of ‘disconnection.’ They have no interest in upgrading their infrastructure. They gleefully issue Un-metered customers with electricity bills strictly based on their own terms not on NERC’s estimated billing methodology.
They have no interest in deploying prepaid meter and they have no interest in making the investment on transformers despite the billion of Naira (bailout) they have received from the federal government.
In 2014, they were beneficiary of the federal government N213.4 billion bailout and beneficiary of the 2017 N701 billion Electricty Market Stabilization Facility provided through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) put Benin Electricity Distribution Company Plc on the spotlight recently when it named it as one of the DisCos with “manifest and flagrant breaches” of EPSRA terms and conditions of their respective distribution licences and the order.’’
The G&BJournal implores the federal government to immediately step in to get the BEDC performing or outrightly revoke its licence. The end users in the power value chain in the states BEDC COVERS are expressing an increasing sense of desperation. That is why the conversation should refocus on a permanent solution to the erratic behaviour of the BEDC in its coverage areas. Revoke their licence.
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