The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has warned estate owners to desist from over billing residents, urging them to abide by the rules of the industry.
Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Sam Amadi, gave this warning yesterday in Abuja at an enlightenment programme organised for estate developers and residents.
He explained that the regulatory agency had in recent times received several complaints from residents who claimed that they were being over billed by their estate owners.
According to him, “The meeting aims at getting estate owners to understand how they should serve residents of estates. Because we got some complains from some residents of estates who feel that they are over billed. In this industry estate owners are not permitted to sell electricity, because they are not electricity traders.”
He explained that because of the bulk metering system, estate owners buy electricity from distribution companies and then distribute power to the residents. “We expect that even as they distribute it, they should not charge more than the allowed tariff for energy use,” he stressed.
“But we have cases where they install the wrong kind of meters and over bill the residents. Some residents claim to have bills as high as N8, 000 monthly, whereas their usage should be less than that.”
?