The country’s electricity Distribution Companies, especially Ikeja Electric Distribution Company, have been accused of diverting generated power to industrial concerns at the expense of homes and private users.
This was the position of the National Union of Electricity Employers at a news briefing on Monday.
The point was particularly of concern to the General Secretary of NUEE, Joe Ajaero, who said IKEDC was exploiting Lagosians for its own selfish end of more profit.
Based on the charges for electricity, commercial distributors pay more than private users.
At the briefing on Monday, NUEE alleged that DISCOs are adding to the power outages nationwide by rejecting load from Generation Companies.
NUEE said by doing this, the DISCOs are worsening power supply to customers.
The union said the DISCOs have devised the means of rejecting load as a way of cutting operational costs.
It said the action was impacting most negatively on end users of electricity, including residents and businesses, at a time the country was also grappling with one of its worst fuel crisis.
It was quick to agree that generation to the national grid had dropped drastically to about 2,500 megawatts, but declared that the unpatriotic act of rejecting load allocation by the DISCOs is encouraged by the absence of prepaid meters in most homes and offices.
It said: “The situation allows the DISCOs to operate with estimated billing, which they foist on customers.
“The DISCOs know that whether or not they supply, they would distribute bill to their customers who must pay.
“And even the bill is estimated, not based on consumption, so it is not a surprise that they are rejecting load to slash costs.
“But this unpatriotic act is at the expense of helpless customers who do not have any alternative.”
Ajaero accused IKEDC of being one of the DISCOS guilty of load rejection.
He said the company was giving priority to big industrial concerns from where it rakes in millions, while leaving homes and small companies in darkness.
