DISCOs Are Scammers – Igbo Forum Calls For Revocation Of Licences

By Adadainfo

Licences of Electricity Distrubution Companies (DISCOs) in the country should be revoked due to their corrupt practices.

The Ndigbo Unity Forum (NUF) stated this in a statement made available to newsmen in Enugu on Sunday.

The group said it had become glaring that the privatisation of power in the country by the Goodluck Jonathan administration was a ‘huge hoax and scam’.

The group, through its national president, Dede Uzor A. Uzor, expressed shock that the All Progressives Congress-led government ‘still allowed this fraudulent scam to continue more than nearly eight years after they took over the reins of power’.

There is nothing electricity distribution companies provide for Nigeria except to exploit them by charging exorbitant cum crazy bills and manipulated prepaid billing system, the group said.

According to the forum, “The DISCOs recently introduced fast reading metres by replacing the old ones, while they bluntly refused to metre those people who are still in estimated billings so that they can continue to exploit them.

“In the face of all these high charges, the services are abysmally and criminally poor as they refuse to supply power to the consumers even when there is avalanche of power in the grid.”

The forum regretted that Ndigbo were made to ‘bear the brunt of replacing packed-up transformers, damaged parts and pay for the services rendered by staff or agents of DISCOs under duress and exploitations’.

It added, “Sometimes, there would be no light for several days, weeks and months due minor faults.

“DISCOs have become conduit pipe and an avenue  through  which consumers are being  exploited by privileged few.”

For those using prepaid metres, the group alleged that ‘DISCOs installed fast-reading metres that make power consumption for the customers very expensive and exploitative’.

This, the group lamented, was in addition to the inbuilt system which makes the metres enter into what they call ‘tamper code’.

The forum accused EEDC ‘of corruptive distribution of power and load shading in some commercial and residential areas in South East, and called for ‘immediate overhaul of power system in Nigeria and removal of feeder managers, managers, distribution managers, sectional heads and others involved in contributing to  poor power supply in Onitsha and the entire South East’.

The group called on the federal government to develop other sources of generating power, such as solar as well as allow companies, organisations and individuals ‘who can generate their own power to do so and distribute without facing unnecessary bottlenecks from the system’.