“Much as our stakeholders are satisfied with our speed since we rolled out the programme”, Aba Power managing director, Ugo Opiegbe, told select journalists in Aba today, “we will do much more in the next six months and achieve a far greater target after that”.

It is estimated that meter installation for some 200,000 registered customers in the Aba Ring-fenced Area will cost at least N32 billion.

Aba Power commenced commercial operations in September 2022 and provides electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas (LGAs) in Abia State.

To reduce the financial burden on the power distribution company, the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) directed it to work in conjunction with meter vending companies which now charge customers between  N129,000 and N147,640.01 for a single-phase meter and N227,207.76 and N241,875 for a three-phase meter, from N88,124 and N154,624 for single-phase and three-phase meters, respectively.

“We regret these increases in these difficult times for the Nigerian people, but they are inevitable because of the depreciating value of the naira against the dollar”, Opiegbe explained.

“The good news is that the customers will recoup the payments over 10 years through electricity credit”.

The power utility executive disclosed that Aba Power is currently working with two meter vendors., though it is considering increasing the number as soon as possible to end the practice of estimated meter readings completely.

“Estimated bills are a no-no to us because it does not encourage accountability and transparency”, Opiegbe stated.

“They do not give confidence to our customers, so they cannot be satisfied”.

He revealed that some of the vendors Aba Power negotiated earlier but couldn’t hire because of issues of quality and integrity may be engaged now because they have made amends and “are willing to meet our standards, which must be international”.

There are unconfirmed reports that some agents of the vending companies were illegally charging money to individuals and businesses. The Aba Power MD declined to comment on the allegation.

The utility is currently working with Holley Metering Ltd and the KAYZ Consortium to install smart prepaid meters to all businesses and individuals in its coverage area.

The Aba Power MD said that his company has 31 feeders, making it difficult to provide smart prepaid meters to the people on all the feeders simultaneously.

“We are providing prepaid meters feeder by feeder”, he stated.

“We have covered four feeders in the last six months, namely, Aba Township, Aba East, Ehi Road, and the World Bank.

“We are about to start on the fifth feeder, and our chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji, has asked us always to prioritize manufacturing firms because they are the foremost group that brought Geometric Power to Aba, a key industrial city.

“We give them priority so that they can reduce the cost of doing of doing business, which will, in turn, make their products more affordable and thus benefit the common man”.

Dike Ejike, an engineer and electricity consultant in Enugu, commended Aba Power for giving priority to industrialists.

“Manufacturers are going through a rough phase in Nigeria, and they must be encouraged to retain their staff, otherwise their collapse will have a cataclysmic effect on not just the economy but Nigerian society as a whole”.  

Engineer Blessing Ogbe, the Aba Power Chief Commercial Officer, told the two-day Ist Conference on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) on Market Opportunities for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) ending today at the Technology Incubation Centre in Aba, Aba State, that the process of obtaining prepaid meters from the Aba electricity distribution firm takes even months for some electricity users because they do not follow the right process.

The power company launched last May the Aba Power Mass Metering Programme (APMMP) to provide prepaid meters to consumers without paying any deposit, promising to make them available within 10 working days after a customer’s request.

“10 working days are in practice two weeks because of the work-free days during the weekend and the Monday Sit-at-home campaign in the five Southeastern states by some non-state actors”, Engr Ogbe explained to the participants at the conference on how businesses in the Southeast and the South-south geopolitical zones of Nigeria can key into the opportunities provided by the regional free trade agreement which Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, signed in 2021.

“Some customers collect the Aba Power Ltd account number (not a bank account) and go home, expecting us to come to their homes and businesses premises and provide the meters”.

Engr Ogbe said that the company wouldn’t know that such persons are waiting for Aba Power and its partners in their places to install prepaid meters unless they send the completed form to any of its offices.

Once the completed account number is submitted to Aba Power, he explained, the company would send a team to assess the electricity needs of the customer.

He said: “Contrary to popular thinking, the electricity may not have to do with the size of a structure.

“An ice block maker operating in a single room or two may opt for a single-phase meter which can burn easily as a result of overloading whereas another person living in a bigger place may need a single phase meter.

“An industrialist will definitely need a different kind of meter”.

Ifeanyi Odumoko, another engineer with Aba Power, told journalists that some customers use unqualified electricians to bring out their wires and cables in blocks of flats where different consumers share one meter to quicken the process of meter installation for them, but noted that the error delays the installation.

“Aba Power is providing each flat or shop a separate meter to promote accountability and transparency, but the failure to use competent and experienced technicians to bring out their wires for us to install prepaid meters makes the job a little more difficult for us”, he observed.

Both Engineers Ogbe and Odumuko assured that customers can get their prepaid meters once they follow the right process which they said has been explained several times in the company’s enlightenment campaign in the mass media and in direct engagements with members of the public.

The N20bn Aba Power Mass Metering Programme, carried out in partnership with some meter vendors, is ongoing in the Aba Township Feeder which covers an area of seven kilometers route length.

The warning is contained in a statement this morning signed by the Aba Power Limited managing director, Patrick Umeh, who notes that the “criminals are trying to cash in on the enthusiasm of Abia people to acquire both single-phase and three-phase meters to commit fraud against unsuspecting electricity consumers”.

Displaying copies of fraudulent demand notices, Umeh, a former commissioner with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in charge of markets, rates and competition, explains that the notices are “surprisingly not in the name of Aba Power Limited but in the name of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company(EEDC)”.

The nine LGAs serviced by Aba Power were part of the territory covered by the EEDC until February 2022 when Aba Power acquired the ring-fenced area, however, the billing for power supplies remained in the EEDC name until six months later.

“To make the illegal demand notices and advisories on prepaid meter payment look genuine”, said Umeh, who was also an executive with the Los Angeles Water and Power Corporation in California, “the criminals ask customers to pay exactly the same amounts charged by Aba Power for our services and products”.

In a fake advisory to a customer at130 St Michael Road in Aba, the Abia State commercial nerve-centre, she is requested to pay N63,061.27 for a single-phase meter into the account of Advanced Energy Management Solutions with any bank whereas Aba Power is working with Holley Metering Ltd, as approved by NERC, for prepaid meter installation in the nine LGAs. She is also given a false Remitta payment reference number of 110768132753.

The fraudsters, in a further move to make the transaction look authentic, provide telephone numbers through which they can be reached, namely, 084700100, 08150825365 and 08150825365.

A single-phase meter costs N63,061.32 while a three-phase meter costs
N117,910.69. The payments can be made in full or in installments for up to
three months.

Mr Jude Efidi, a sales manager at Aba Power, explains that the meter asset
belongs to Aba Power, hence the payments made by customers for meters
under MAP Scheme will be refunded to them in 36 months through energy
credit.

“This is a far-reaching measure to ameliorate the burden of acquiring prepaid meters in these difficult times, and Aba Power is working hand in hand with NERC for the speedy implementation ion of this national programme”, he states.

“Our chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji, a former Minister of Power and one of the world’s best-known academic engineers, has directed Aba Power to become the first electricity distribution firm in Nigeria to provide all its customers with prepaid meters, despite the fact that Aba Power is less than a year old ”.

Umeh describes as regrettable a situation “where NERC and Aba Power led by Professor Nnaji are working frantically to make things better for Abia people, some criminals are employing various tricks to defraud them of their hard-earned resources”.

He advises customers to pay only into the designated account with Access Bank.

“Customers who need more information”, he says, “can walk into any of our offices and seek advice from various service teams”.

Nigeria’s newest electricity distribution company, Aba Power Ltd, has launched an aggressive programme to provide meters to all its customers in nine out of the 17 local government areas in Abia State where it supplies electric power.

“The era of estimated bills given to consumers will soon be a thing of the past in our coverage area”, declared Patrick Umeh, its managing director, in a statement in Aba today, adding” we are going to pursue the programme implementation with all the energy we can muster”.

Umeh, a former commissioner with the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), said that even though Aba Power was licensed only last February to provide power to the nine LGAs in Abia, it wants to make history by being the first to meter all its customers.

“Our chairman, Professor Bart Nnaji, a former Minister of Power”, he continued, “has always argued that it is unfair to ask consumers to continue to pay estimated bills which may make them feel shortchanged each month.

“This practice doesn’t make for probity or transparency, as there is no evidence of what they actually consumed for the period charged.

“We are a socially responsible firm, so we must be seen as committed to the highest ethical standards of transparency.

“We regard customers as partners in progress, rather than persons to be exploited for economic or commercial gains”.

Umeh, a former executive with the Los Angeles Water and Power Company in California, revealed that 5000 meters have been procured in the first instance.

The meters are in single and three phases, and will be installed in buildings and other structures according to the technical needs of each place.

Three-phase meters, he explained, “will be installed in big structures while single-phase meters will be installed in smaller ones.

“It is not really so much about big structures as about the electricity needs of each place”.

The cost of one-phase meter is N63,061.32 and that of a three-phase meter is N117,910.69.

“Our Technical Team will visit each structure and assess the needs, after which our partners, Holley Metering Limited, will install the appropriate meter”, said the Aba Power chief.

He disclosed that the Aba utility firm chose to work with Holley Metering Limited after NERC had certified it as a reliable meter provider.

Commending NERC for its preeminent role in Aba Power’s ongoing programme to meter all its customers, Umeh disclosed that “it’s being executed under the NERC’s Meter Access Providing (MAP) scheme”.

The MD said that customers would be repaid the cost of obtaining each meter through energy credit.

This means that the customers will be entitled to power supply until they have obtained full value for the meter payment.

“In other words”, he explained, the customers “are getting the meters at no cost to their pockets”.

Umeh requested Aba Power customers to visit or call any of the company’s offices in Abia State on the phone to procure the right meter, assuring them of prompt attention.