• Berates Soludo for signing N100 billion MoU with DISCO
From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Following the high electricity billing by the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) and epileptic power supply to consumers in the Southeast, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has threatened to shut down the DISCO.
Spokesman of the group, Emma Powerful, who disclosed this in a statement he released to newsmen in Owerri at the weekend, said that the high billing, especially in rural communities has become worrisome and, therefore, the resolve of the group to exit the company from the zone.
IPOB claimed that the company has been defrauding the people without giving them prepaid metres and in most cases the light the company gives was unstable.
“EEDC is defrauding her consumers with exorbitant electricity bills without supplying the power. The company has refused to give her consumers prepaid electricity meters, but keeps giving illegal estimated bills.
“In many communities in the Southeast, EEDC gives community bills running into hundreds of thousands of naira. Whether the light was provided or not, any village that didn’t pay the illegal estimated bills will have the irregular light supply disconnected.
“Communities buy their own power transformers and electricity cables at the same time pay corrupt EEDC company to link power to the community. Afterwards, EEDC will bill the same village for the same power supply.
“EEDC dismantled some community’s faulty transformers for repairs and maintenance, but fails to return it for years, some 10 years and some five years, till date those transformers were not restored nor seen.
“How can our people be paying for lights they did not consume? How wicked is EEDC and its management? IPOB calls on EEDC to stop defrauding our people or exit the Southeast region or provide lights to the citizens,” the group demanded.
Similarly, IPOB has berated the Anambra State government for signing an MOU and paying a contract sum of over N100 billion to EEDC to supply 24 hours light in Anambra State.
The group expressed disappointment that after one year of payment of the money to EEDC for steady light, Anambra State is still in darkness.
It said: “The power sector in Nigeria has been decentralized and liberalized. That means states, local government and private companies can generate and distribute their own light. It becomes imperative that the forces of darkness in the Southeast called EEDC must be shown the exit door.
“IPOB is calling for steady lights in the region by EEDC, if they continue with the abysmal light supply in the Southeast, IPOB will have no option than to shut down EEDC offices in the Southeast in the shortest possible time.”
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