NERC, listen to electricity customers’ complaints

We are seeing an avalanche of unresolved customer complaints in the electricity sector and the Distribution Companies (DisCos) are either unwilling or incapable to resolve them while the regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission appears clueless. This is unbecoming and it is now time to prioritise customers’ needs after ramming through a 50 percent hike in tariffs.

Electricity customers feel helpless when their meters malfunction and they have to deal with the unwieldy customer complaints resolution process at the DisCos, or when the next estimated bill arrives and they know that it is ridiculously far higher than what they actually consumed. The next recourse is to complain to the regulator and more often than not, they are left even more frustrated.

Over seven years after the power sector was privatised, less than half of the over 10million electricity customers have meters and of these, 3million customers have defective meters. This is despite the fact that estimated billing is the most vexing issue in the sector. Customers spend their money to buy or repair transformers, power cables, meters, and other power infrastructure that should have been provided by their DisCos.

NERC recently published a dispute complaint resolution process mapping and put it up on Twitter, which allowed dozens of customers to complain under the tweet. The regulator kept referring the customers back to their DisCos as if it was not the incompetence of the DisCos that drove them to complain to the regulator in the first place. The process of resolving customer complaints is slow, time-consuming, and stress-inducing. It should not be this way if the regulator was alive to its duties. DisCos make a show of their swanky IT-led customer complaints resolution systems but they fail to address the most basic complaints.

NERC usually invites dissatisfied customers to complain to their DisCos and if it is not resolved, escalate it to the forum offices – a quasi court where the regulator adjudicates. But customers say cases taken there are not addressed fairly or timeously. Many are ignored altogether. When a DisCo takes months to address a customer’s concern, then regardless of how great the process mapping may look, it is ineffectual. Enforcing customer’s rights should be a priority for a serious regulator.

According to the 2019 annual report of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, the bulk of complaints received was from the power sector.

“Some of the recurring consumer complaints handled by the Commission in the electricity sector were wrong, estimated billing, non-provision of prepaid meters, unlawful disconnection, harassment by DisCos, no provision of infrastructure (electric poles, transformers, and accessories) and poor customer service,” the Commission said.

We urge the regulator to be responsive to the challenges facing the electricity customer. The government’s National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) is failing despite claims by government officials touting its progress. It was absurd to try to replace the Meter Asset Providers regulation, backed by regulation with a programme without any legal backing. After 6 months of promising customers 1million meters, the government has only delivered around 30,000 despite all the fanfare.

The Service-based tariff system introduced in November 2020 by NERC is compelling customers to pay a higher tariff rate for electricity based on the hours of power they supply daily. Yet, DisCos are not meeting their obligation to supply the full contracted hours. They should be sanctioned.

Electricity supply is worse in the southeastern parts of the country if you leave the main cities such as Owerri, Umuahia, Onitsha, due to atrocious service by Enugu DisCo who continues to fight to keep its franchise area intact when it is abysmally serving them. In parts of Northern Nigerian served by Kano and Kaduna DisCos, millions do not get power supply for weeks. Lack of electricity in the rural areas is one important reason for rural-urban migration and lack of development outside major cities.

It is shameful that complaints are not reducing significantly in a sector supposedly undergoing reforms. During the second quarter of 2020, the eleven DisCos received 203,116 complaints from consumers, indicating 0.68 percent fewer complaints than those received during the first quarter of 2020 according to NERC’s report. The regulator cannot continue to acquiesce to the demands of the DisCos while ignoring customers. This is how to fail, abysmally.