The Enugu Electricity Distribution Company PLC (EEDC) has rued the poor payment culture by its postpaid customers across the South East.
It said that despite the steady improvement in the quality of its services, several customers were still comfortable with power theft.
The Head, Corporate Communications, EEDC, Emeka Ezeh made this revelation in Enugu, on Sunday, after the just concluded Cash Drive exercise embarked on by the company across its network.
Ezeh lamented the huge collection loss the company is grappling with while striving to improve on the quality of services, and at the same time meet up with its regulatory obligations to the Market Operator and other players within the electricity value chain.
“The fact that customers are so comfortable consuming our supply and not paying remains a matter of concern to us as an enterprise, as this attitude negatively impacts on our overall performance. This situation informed the need for us to embark on the Cash Drive exercise, to enable us to meet with these customers one-on-one to know why they are not paying their bills,” he said.
Ezeh emphasized that cash was key in running the operations of the company, as it enabled it to attend to the barrage of network challenges, as well as carry out some network expansion projects targeted at improved performance and service delivery.
According to the company’s spokesman, on a monthly basis, the company imports and distributes energy to its customers, but end up struggling to recover the revenue, thereby leaving the company with a rising debt profile.
“The fact remains that there has been steady and consistent improvement in the quality of services to our customers and it is expected that the impact of this improvement has to reflect in their bills at the end of the month”, Ezeh explained.
He further reiterated that if customers were not paying their bills as and when due, there was no way the EEDC could continue sustaining its operations and providing quality services.
Ezeh went on to advise customers who have issues with their electricity bills “to take advantage of the established customer redress mechanism at the Customer Service Units across our Service Centers and district Offices, to lodge their complaints.
“We are committed to serving our customers and appeal for their support in ensuring that they pay their bills promptly and avoid all forms of energy theft”.
