Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) has moved to cut down the fixed charges for power consumption being paid by its customers by 50 per cent.
In a statement yesterday, Ikeja Electric stated that its managing director, Mr. Abiodun Ajifowobaje, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ consultative forum on cost-reflective tariff in Lagos.
Household consumers under IKEDC and the other power distribution companies currently pay N750 as fixed charge monthly. If the proposal to reduce the charge is approved, customers will be paying N375.
Ajifowobaje stated the company had submitted the reduction proposal to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission for approval.
When contacted, the Chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Dr. Sam Amadi, on the development, he stated he was aware that the power distribution companies were reviewing their fixed charges.
As stated by him, the distribution companies are independent entities and can do whatsoever they wish with their tariffs.
But he noted that most of the tariff reviews being talked about at the moment were still at the proposal stage.
As stated by Ajifowobaje, IKEDC has actually reduced the fixed charges by 50 per cent from customers’ bills but has increased the energy charge per kilowatt/hour.
He urged the consumers within the zone to embrace cost-reflective tariff to enable the company to serve them better.
Ajifowobaje stated that the company was being constrained by the present tariff structure, which he noted was not cost-reflected.
He noted that the proposed new tariff would address some of the lingering challenges in customer billing, adding that residential customers had been grouped into R1, R2, R3 and R4 categories.
The Ikeja Electric CEO stated that customers would no longer be billed on uniform categorisation but based on the electricity consumption in particular locations, stressing, “We cannot have zero charges; there is no place in the world that pays zero charges on fixed charges.”