The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which is also referred to as National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) is an organizational body governing the use of electricity in Nigeria.
The company became a public limited company (NEPA PLC) in the late 2000s and was later changed to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
Despite the cash investment by the Federal Government, State Government and Local Government through the beneficiaries of NEPA, the system has not been favorable to the masses.
The poor masses pay for what they barely enjoy and at times lay abusive words to the organization for not being provided power supply.
I could remember the Electric Power Sector Reform Act (Amendment) Bill 2018 which was presented during the Eight National Assembly and was represented during July 2019, the bill was entitled a bill for an act to amend the electric power sector reforms act to prohibit and criminalize estimated billing by electricity distribution companies and to provide for compulsory installation of pre-paid meters to all power consumers in Nigeria.
But today, how many Nigerians are tantamount to the use of pre-paid meters? At least the system allows you to pay for only what you enjoy, which means your bill stops to count whenever there is no power supply and counts whenever the power supply is been restored.
I once lived in a community in sokoto state where we don’t even have licence to the NEPA officials, all they do is send a representative after every month to collect the bill or cut the light. We pay for huge sum of bills without being issued a receipt, we pay because we barely can do without the light despite knowing we are been cheated but what pains mostly is paying without enjoying what you paid for.
Youths precisely spend not less than N100 per day to get their phones, laptops and other rechargeable appliances charged, we at times miss a lot of life-changing jobs due to our mobile numbers unreachable.
In some part of Sokoto State, Wamako precisely have recorded three consecutive months till date without power supply, Gummi and Bilbis in Zamfara State have recorded almost a year till date without power supply, in some part of Keffi Nasarawa State have recorded two consecutive month till date without power supply due to a theft in the community transformer, in Masaka Abuja have also recorded four consecutive months till date without power supply.
We call on the Power Holding Company of Nigeria to look into this trending issues and find a lasting solutions to them, transformers should be provided enough rather than having them overloaded, pre-paid meters should be issued to all and let the light flourish, if the private sector won’t be capable of the system then let the government take over.
NEPA should also remember that a lot of businesses today needs power supply to function well or they close down.
Source: A.A Zubair.
