…Customers unable to buy token as Coy migrate more to Band A
From Rotimi Asher, Lagos
Customers of Ikeja Electric Plc still using the Unistar prepaid meters have been advised to apply for new meters.
The energy distribution company in a statement yestetday said it would phase out the meter model from Thursday, November 14, 2024.
The Unistar prepaid meter was one of the first models rolled out to customers over 10 years ago.
In the notice to its customers today, Ikeja Electric asked its customers still using the model to apply a new one on its website as they would no longer CC vend energy units on that meter from next month.
“Please note all Unistar meters will be phased out by 14th November 2024 as TID rollover beckons.
“Apply for a prepaid meter today to avoid estimate bulling,” the company said in the message, asking affected electricity consumers to apply for a new via smartkyc.ikejaelectric.com.
However, the recent migration of more customers to Band A has come with challenges, including the inability of users of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company ,IKEDC, to recharge their pre-paid meters, Business Post has learnt.
Over the last month, customers have been unable to buy electricity tokens across agents and even via their banking apps.
Independent checks by this newspaper also confirmed this development. Messages like “System Busy” and “The request was failed. Please try again” have been displayed across buying channels.
All possible means to get a reasonable explanation from the disco were met with no response and checks done by this reporter indicated that the problem was widespread.
The company recently added more electricity consumers on its network coverage areas to Band A feeders, raising the number to over 200 after approval by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission ,NERC.
An industry expert told Business Post that the onboarding of customers was placing pressure on the energy infrastructure, creating a challenge for the system.
Band A customers are premium customers who have been exempted from government electricity subsidies. These customers are charged N227.27 kilowatt-hour (VAT inclusive) instead of N68. They are to enjoy a minimum of N20 hours of electricity every day.
The boost in the tariffs is expected to reduce subsidies for 2024 by about N1.14 trillion.
This development is to help cover the cost for more than seven million electricity customers that are unmetered in Nigeria. Many have also taken to social media to lament the challenges.
“All attempts to buy units online have been futile. Kindly confirm the server at your end is operational. I tried two independent platforms to no avail,” a customer lamented on the official handle of the company on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Another indicated that, “Why is your server always done? Since yesterday till now, we can’t buy electricity.”
The federal government had in June said it was going to ensure the full-scale metering of unmetered Band A electricity customers before the end of September 2024.
“We are releasing N20 billion for the electricity distribution companies to procure meters for the unmetered Band A customers before the end of September”.
“The government has put in place the required framework to enable an injection of 1.5 million meters into the power sector through the World Bank Distribution Support Recovery Programme”, the Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu said at an energy conference.
