"Give us light " residents of kaduna cries.

Head office of Kaduna Electric Distribution Company

John Shiklam writes on how communities in Kaduna are spending millions of naira to maintain electricity installations without any compensation or improved services from the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company

When the former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was unbounded and privatised, electricity consumers were hopeful of improved and efficient services from private owners.

However, the story seems to be the same as there seem to be no departure from the inefficient, corrupt and fraudulent activities of the defunct PHCN.

In Kaduna, what has become a source of serious worry among electricity consumers in the northern city, apart from the epileptical electricity supply, lack of prepaid metres and crazy bills, is the fact that they also have to bear the huge cost of repairing or replacing electricity installations and other accessories like transformers, burnt armored cables, feeder units, panels, fuses and many others.

Although the Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC) maintained that it is its responsibility to ensure the repairs or replacement of electricity installations, THISDAY findings revealed that the company, in a deliberate effort to compel electricity consumers to bear the cost of addressing faults, will ask them to wait or contribute money to make the repairs.

It was gathered that any community that chooses to wait for the company stays without electricity supply for eternity. It was also learnt that because of the importance of electricity in the lives of people and how desperate they need it for their businesses, the electricity company, especially its staff always capitalised on this to compel people to bear the cost of the repairs as well as extort them.

As a result, many communities across the state contribute money to either buy a new transformer or repair a faulty one.

For instance in Kigo New Extension, residents of the area had to spend over N200,000 to repair their faulty transformer after they were given an option of waiting or repairing it by themselves.

Chief Donatus Eze, a community leader in the area told THISDAY in an interview that the when the transformer in his area became faulty sometimes in March 2016, the community reported the matter to the electricity company, but was told that there was no transformer on the ground and should be patient pending when there is transformer.

“We went to the Head office of the Kaduna Electricity Company to complain. They told us that they will look into it. Two days after, they came and confirmed that the transformer was bad.

“They said they don’t have transformer on the ground to give us. They said we should be patient until when they get transformer. We asked them how long it will take them to get the transformer for us. They told us that they don’t know when they will get it.

“We asked them whether they can repair the one that is spoilt. They told us that they can repair it but that they don’t have the materials to repair it except if we can take it upon ourselves.“So each member of our community contributed N4000 and we spent over N200,000 to repair the transformer. We gave the money to the staff of the electricity company. They even charged us for the company’s crane that carried the transformer for the repairs. They collected about N170, 000 for the repairs and about N50, 000 for their crane that carried it,” Eze said.

According to him, less than one week after electricity was restored, the marketer covering the area came and to say that people were not paying their bill.

We told him that everybody in our community has a prepaid metre and it was not possible for anyone using electricity not to pay for it.

“He made a call and said he was ordered from above to disconnect us. So he disconnected us and for hours we were without electricity.

“We asked him to give us the phone number of his boss and we spoke to the man, I don’t know who the boss was. After several hours, they reconnected us around 10pm,” Eze said.

The community leader wondered why the electricity company which is now a private company will shift its responsibilities to customers, saying that the company should find a way of compensating customers for the maintenance of their equipment.

“We pay our bills promptly. Why should we be the ones to be repairing their equipment for them? This is a private business, if we are spending money to repair or replace their facilities, they should find a way of compensating us.“Their argument is that if we cannot repair it, we should be patient until when they have the equipment. But the truth is that even if they have the equipment, they will still not want to spend their money because the staff and the company are capitalising on the fact that we are desperate to have electricity, so anything they tell us, we will do it,” Eze stated further.