DisCos get 857,108 consumer complaints in 12 months

In 2020, 11 electricity distribution companies, also known as the DisCos, received 857,108 complaints from consumers, representing 32 per cent more than those received in 2019 (648,537 complaints), according to a newly released report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.

This amounts to an average of 2,348 complaints per day.

In total, the DisCos attended to 799,236 complaints, representing a 93.25 per cent resolution rate.

A breakdown shows that Eko Disco had the highest customer complaints of 53 per cent, followed by Kano DisCo with 50 per cent.

Ikeja DisCo ranked third with 49 per cent, while both Abuja and Benin DisCos each recorded 48 per cent complaints.

Enugu DisCo recorded 39 per cent, while Port Harcourt had 39 per cent.

Kaduna DisCo got 32 per cent complaints, Jos DisCo 29 per cent, Ibadan 28 per cent, and Yola had the least complaints of 20 per cent.

Benin DisCo and Eko DisCo had the lowest resolution rates of 84.96 per cent and 89.14 per cent respectively based on the proportion of complaints not addressed in 2020.

A review of the customer complaints data indicated that metering, billing and service interruption were the prevalent sources of customer complaints, accounting for 63 per cent of the total complaints in the year under review.

Further analysis of the data showed that metering got the highest complaints of 24 per cent, followed by billing with 21 per cent.

Electricity interruption complaints recorded 18 per cent; disconnection, 10 per cent; load shedding, 8 per cent; voltage, 8 per cent; and other complaints, 5 per cent.

The commission said its Forum Offices had a total of 8,438 complaints (plus the pending complaints of 1,258 in 2019) from customers who were dissatisfied with DisCos’ decision on their lodged complaints.

Billing and metering issues dominated the category of complaints received by the Forum Offices. This implies that billing and metering issues were mostly the complaints not satisfactorily resolved by DisCos’ Complaints Handling Units during the year under review.

During the period, NERC’s Forum panels said it held 115 hearings and 7,612 (90.21 per cent) of the complaints lodged at Forum Offices nationwide were resolved either through hearings or preliminary engagements between the Forum Secretaries and the concerned DisCos. This represented a 45.76 percentage point increase in the resolution rate compared to 44.45 per cent average of the prior three years (2017 – 2019).

Furthermore, 36 (4.36 per cent) out of the 826 unresolved cases in 2020 were a result of incomplete submission and/or withdrawal of complaints by consumers.

“The Commission continues to monitor the operation and efficacy of its Forum Offices to ensure quick resolution of all outstanding and new complaints in line with the Forum Offices operating manual,” NERC said in a note.

The Executive Secretary, the Association of Electricity Distributors, ANED, Sunday Oduntan, declined comment on what the association was doing to ensure that the utility firms address critical issues bedeviling the power sector, thereby scaling down on electricity customers’ complaints.

Both calls and Whatsapp messages to his line were not replied before press time.

Metering Expert, Sesan Okunade, told The PUNCH that the outcome of the 2020 pandemic had led to job losses and pay cuts, leading to serious gap in meeting up with payment of electricity bills.

“One of the mechanisms of measuring the energy being used became the order of the day. Before 2020, there was CAPMI and individuals thinking that with metering, they would pay lower than those with estimated billing. So, the proof for having meters was on the rise, and everybody wanted to have meters so they could have accurate measures of their energy consumption. Even up till now, the major things people complain about are still metering and billing, even though the Federal Government is making efforts at metering. DisCos must make sure people are metered because everyone is now eager to be metered.

“Then in the area of interruption, you would observe that the number of system collapses the country has been recording is high. The DisCos have not been able to put in as much fund as required, leading to many of them being taken over by the Federal Government. The challenges are deep because the investments in the power sector are huge, but the majority of them dabbled into it without having an understanding of what they should do. However, now that the Federal Government is beginning to intervene, there should be an improvement in metering which will lead to minimal billing complaints,” he said.