BABAJIDE OKEOWO
A bewildered customer, Tope Odebunmi, has queried the rationale for Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC for laying claim to a transformer they bought with their hard earned money.
The interior decorator and blogger took to Social Media networking site, Facebook, to complain about the antics of IBEDC after her community Ijeja, Obada in Abeokuta.
She complained: “In my area, we contributed money to buy transformer; we ran the wires and poles with our money. PHCN [sic] came and started charging us ridiculous bills despite not making any investment in the power supply.
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“The transformer has been faulty for two months now. We took it to Lagos and repaired it with our money. The repairer said the transformer would only last for a few months; that it will soon pack up. So, we started making back up plans to contribute money to buy another. Yet NEPA [sic] is still bringing their ridiculous bills. After we buy another transformer still WITH OUR MONEY these guys will still bring bills.This country! Tuehtueh!! Nothing works,” she added.
Reactions have been trailing the post.
According to Kadiri Agboola, it is even worrisome that the DisCo will lay ownership to the transformer before energising it.
“The annoying part is that after buying, they will ask the community to sign undertaking that that the transformer is the property of IBEDC before energisingit,” he wrote.
Kenneth Ezihe Ndubuisi also lent his voice to the discussion. “You have not seen anything. Our own, during a period of three months, we had no light during which we were preparing to buy a new transformer, and they brought bills for those three months,” he wrote.
On his part, Tope Akinlaja hopes to see a change soon. “The law that has always been in existence is that once a transformer is energised, or your wires and poles get connected to the national grid, they automatically become NEPA [sic] property. It is sad though. The same thing happened in my area. We did everything by community effort. But I see a turnaround in this situation in the nearest future,” he expressed.
