The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), says delay being experienced by customers in installation of meters under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) programme is due to registration and verification of customers premises.
Mr Oyebode Fadipe, AEDC’s General Manager, Corporate Communications said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
Fadipe, was reacting to complaints by customers in AEDC’s franchise areas over delays being experienced in getting meters installed in their houses.
Some customers, who had registered online for meters told NAN that they were yet to get response from AEDC and the MAP providers, especially on how payment could be made for a meter.
They had said the procedures for installation were unnecessarily being delayed in spite of directives from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) that meters should be installed under 10 working days after payment.
NERC had said metering of electricity consumers under the MAP programme would begin on May 1.
The commission had also said customers should expect meters to be installed in their premises within 10 working days of making payment to MAPs.
Meanwhile, AEDC had also appointed Mojec International Ltd., Meron Consortium and Turbo Engineering Ltd., to provide 487,000, 213,000 and 200,000 meters for customers in its coverage areas of FCT, Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger states.
The company had recently inaugurated the installation of meters under MAP in its coverage areas.
Fadipe, however, said: “ I know that customers are still under the burden of the delay they experienced in the previous metering project.
“But this MAP programme should not last more than a month , everything put together, it can never be like the previous metering.
“The process is such that you must go through the MAP and I don’t think that it will last more than a month before we install meter for a customer.
“ The moment you finish registration, there are one or two processes you have to go through which is inclusive of site verification.
“It is when they have finished the site verification that they will now ask you to go and pay after one or two other processes.
“So, it is actually when you have paid that they can start counting the 10 working days for the installation.
“The period of delay is the period before payment that is where the challenge is.
“Of course given the fact that the backlog is huge, we must also expect that we need to be careful, so that we don’t muddle up the process.
“Because we have to take all the data, key them into the system, keep them in the data base and then get back to the customer at the appropriate time.’’
The AEDC spokesperson also said in the event of any challenge on the MAP procedures, customers could also get information from the “Frequently Asked Questions“ section on the company’s website.
“Once they go on our website, www.Abujaelectricity.com they will see all of the things they need to do.
“Let them just read the frequently asked questions, all of those of information.
“ And if there is any other one that is giving them challenge, we can always linked them up with the MAP project team, that will handle each and every challenge that they may have’’.(NAN)
