By Olakunle Olafioye
Electricity costumers heaved a sigh of relief last week, when power distribution companies in the country announced the suspension of the proposed hike in electricity tariffs earlier slated to take effect from this month.
The Discos had a fortnight ago announced possible upward review of electricity tariffs payable by the consumers. The companies had justified the proposed increase on the floating of the naira, which has shot exchange rate from MYTO 2020 benchmark of N441/$1 to about N750/$1 with electricity consumers across the various networks and bands notified of possible increase between 30 to 40 per cent.
The tariff adjustment has become an additional source of concern to house owners who are yet to be metered as the majority of them are believed to have accumulated electricity debts running into hundreds of thousands of Naira.
Alhaja Mulikat Oseni, a resident of Aminkanle in Alagbado area of Lagos State is one of such house owners. The 73-year-old landlady told Sunday Sun that her six-room apartment has electricity debt of N489, 000 hanging on it.
This, she claimed, has been a major repellant to prospective tenants who had shown interest in the two vacant rooms since the former occupants vacated them last year.
The septuagenarian blamed the outrageous electricity bill given to unmetered residents of the community for the exorbitant electricity debts incurred by most houses in the locality. According to her, “the problem started a few years ago when we started receiving prohibitive electricity bills despite the erratic power supply to the area. After series of complaints to the Ikeja Electric without any improvement, people started paying whatever they can afford at the end of the month to avoid being disconnected. There are houses with debts going to a million naira in this community.”
Mr Odejobi Sunday, a resident of Abule Okoro, in Alakuko area of Ifako-Ijaye Local Government Area of Lagos State, is equally contending with the headache of growing electricity debt in his place of abode.
The father of three told Sunday Sun correspondent that his house is owing electricity debt of over N500,000, which he said had made the vacant apartments in the building unattractive to new tenants.
Odejobi said that those who had visited the house for inspection were immediately turned off once they found out that there was a huge accumulated electricity debt on the building.
“There are three vacant rooms on the upper floor and two or three on the ground floor for several months now which people are not willing to take because of the accumulated electricity debts on both floors”, he noted.
He blamed the distribution company covering the area for the growing debts, accusing it of dishing out uniform electricity bills to residents of the area without taking cognizance of their consumption level.
“We were given N63, 000 for last month on this floor. And that was what was given to those on the ground floor and almost all the houses in the neighborhood. How did they arrive at their billings? There is a building on the other street with just two rooms, the occupants are given the same amount as every other house in this area irrespective of the number of people living there and what they consume,” he said.
The growing electricity debts hanging on the necks of most house owners, Sunday Sun gathered, had made many accommodation seekers to become very finicky in their search for new apartments.
Many intending tenants in Lagos are not oblivious of the pitfalls in renting houses with huge electricity outstanding. Occupants of such buildings are not only faced with constant harassment from officials of the Discos especially during disconnection exercises, in most cases they are equally compelled to share in the payment of the electricity debts they never incurred.
A resident of the state, Mrs Rita Obiabo who recently moved into a new apartment in Ipaja area of the state said that her search for a new apartment took her eight solid months before she could secure one.
The long search, according to her, was due to the fact that she rejected houses with huge electricity outstanding especially those without meters.
“My husband and I decided we should change our location because the apartment was no longer conducive for us. But when we began the search for the new apartment we discovered that most houses we inspected were having so much electricity debt. In fact, there were houses that had applied to be disconnected owing to their mounting outstanding and the outrageous bills being given to them monthly.
“But after months of fruitless search, one house agent advised that we should beam our search on new buildings that had not been occupied previously. We heeded his advice and found one, but we had to wait for several months for it to be completed before we moved in two months ago.” Mrs Obiabo said.
A real estate agent, Abiodun Ogunlana, attested to the fact that mounting electricity debts in houses with vacant apartments is a major repellant to most house seekers in Lagos State.
He told Sunday Sun that one of the first set of questions most intending tenants ask when they are informed about existing vacant apartments is whether there is no accumulated electricity debt on the building.
“No tenant is ready to inherit electricity debt incurred by old tenants. Once they find out that there is an outstanding electricity bill, they won’t take the house. This mostly affects unmetered houses because of the threat of being thrown into darkness when such houses are disconnected,” he said.
Ogunlana revealed that the issue of growing electricity debts is a major source of worry not only to house owners, but also to the agents.
This, he noted, informed why agents always advise house owners to get prepaid meters, which he conceded also comes with its own challenge.
According to him, “even when the landlord decides to subscribe for a prepaid meter, the burden of paying the previous outstanding which is often deducted each time the meter is recharged is always another source of rancour between old and new tenants.” He, therefore, appealed to the government and power distribution companies across the country to ensure all electricity consumers in the country are metered.
Attempts to seek the reaction and the view of the Head, Corporate Communication, Ikeja Electric, Kingsley Okotie, on the issue proved abortive as he neither answered the calls put through to his line nor replied the WhatsApp message sent to him.