ILORIN: Customers of IBEDC in ILORIN have expressed outrage at the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company and it’s policies which many claim have compounded the sufferings of citizens at this period of battling with scarcity of Naira notes.
Many consumers and customers of the disco took to their social media handles to condemn the management of the company over the non acceptance of old naira notes or any form of e-payment to settle electricity bills.
At the Challenge business Unit office in Ilorin on Saturday, many customers were seen stranded and they complained bitterly on the insensitivity of the IBEDC management for issuing their cashiers instructions not to accept the old naira notes.
An exasperated customer spoke to Rextun City Updates on condition of anonymity. He asked rhetorically, ” has the old notes ceased to be legal tenders? Or is IBEDC joining to sabotage the cashless policy of the CBN?”
Recall that the Supreme Court of Nigeria has given an injunction restraining the CBN from enforcing the February 10 deadline. Meanwhile, the Apex bank has continued to encourage the citizens to embrace the cashless policy Asa way of reducing the hardships occasioned by the inadequate naira notes in circulation.
Another consumer narrated his ordeal to Rextun City Updates in his bid to recharge his prepaid meter smart card.
Identified simply as Mr Kayode, the obviously dissatisfied customer said ” I was at their Challenge Office this morning to recharge a pre-paid card initially, they said there was no network. After waiting for about 15minutes, they said the network has been restored.”
“However, they claimed they had been instructed not to collect the outgoing currency notes for payment. They also refused to take any form of e-payment.”
“After waiting for over 2 hours I had to leave without achieving my purpose of going there.”
In another citizen- consumer dissatisfaction saga, Rextun City Updates spoke to a consumer who was on the quest of contesting the bill IBEDC served him as an unmetered consumer. He explained that his area of residence has in the last six months never had beyond 5hrs of daily power supply with many days gone without power supply at all.
The dissatisfied customer who gave his name as Olatunde explained that the bill stated that he was being “billed as a C12H category of consumer whereas his area at Danialu connected to the Danialu 11KV feeder was listed in the National Electricity Regulations Commission Order No/NERC/214/2020, titled Amended Order on the Capping of Estimated Bills For Ibadan Electricity plc. Estimated billing around the Danialu in Ilorin was categorized as D8H.”
” So IBEDC or it’s agents might have been ripping me and many unsuspecting residents of our hard earned income. That is why I must have a credible explanation on why NERC shouldn’t be notified of this flagrant rip off in the name of estimate billing”
When Rextun City Updates called IBEDC customer care line 07001239999, a robot answered the call and requested the caller to leave name and details as their offices were closed. No other known 24hrs customer care line was available as at the time of filing this report.
