Re: “Electricity users pay more on ‘estimated’ billing…”

We are constrained to write to you to express our concern over the obvious violation of three of the globally accepted ethics of journalism in the reports titled “Electricity users pay more on ‘estimated’ billing”, published in Daily Trust of Tuesday, September 20, 2016 and the one titled “Sabon Lugbe residents count losses in week-long […]

We are constrained to write to you to express our concern over the obvious violation of three of the globally accepted ethics of journalism in the reports titled “Electricity users pay more on ‘estimated’ billing”, published in Daily Trust of Tuesday, September 20, 2016 and the one titled “Sabon Lugbe residents count losses in week-long blackout”, which was published in Daily Trust of Wednesday, September 21, 2016. We are particularly making reference to the principles of objectivity, impartiality and fairness, which we strongly feel, the said reports have failed to meet.
The report on estimated billing said from the outset that a Daily Trust investigation has revealed that “electricity users in the nation’s capital, Abuja, and its environs pay higher bills under the estimated billing system compared with their counterparts using meters”. However, the report failed to substantiate this claim. Rather, it only cited some electricity users who alleged that they were paying more when they were under estimated billing system but noticed that they pay less after meters were installed in their homes or business premises. Incidentally, some of these electricity users cited in the report tacitly admitted that they started conserving power immediately after meters were installed in their homes. For instance, the report said: “Another prepaid meter user, Mr. Andrew Okoh, in Karu, near Abuja city, said that he was happy because he could now regulate his level of consumption. Okoh said: I have used prepaid meter for a year now and I do energy conservation. When I am using the fridge, I turn off other appliances to save cost. I can now account for my energy consumption pattern”.
It is obvious from the statements made by the like of Mr. Okoh, which were quoted in the report that a lot of the electricity users who complain about high bills under the estimated billing system would not reckon with the high level of energy consumed in their homes or business premises because they have meters. We expected the Daily Trust report to reflect this basic fact, which has been acknowledged by some of the interviewees in that report.
Much more importantly, however, we are concerned that no effort was made to reflect the position of Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to the complaints made by the electricity users. Rather, the report mentioned a statement purportedly made by the AEDC Managing Director/CEO, Engr. Ernest Mupwaya, in which he was said to have pledged to address the cases of “unfair billing” which the Company admitted that it was aware of. Again, the report failed to indicate when, where and the circumstances under which the AEDC CEO made such statement. This, also, is an unfair practice in journalism which we least expect to find in Daily Trust as one of the leading newspapers, at least in Nigeria.
For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state unequivocally that at no time did our MD/CEO or any representative of AEDC confirmed cases of “unfair billing” as cited in that report. We acknowledge that because estimated billing is about approximation, which is not exact science, we may over or under bill our customers in some circumstances. And this is why at the back of every estimated bill issued to its customers, AEDC has always published channels through which those customers with bill-related complaints or other issues could get them addressed.
With respect to the story about a lingering outage in Sabon Lugbe, we are similarly concerned that no attempt was made to present AEDC’s position on the complaints by the affected customers. More so, the report was not an accurate presentation of the situation in Sabon Lugbe as at the time of publication.
It is true that there was an outage that lingered for about a week in Sabon Lugbe, Aleta, Pyakasa, Chika, Gosa, Aso Zones 1-9, Lugbe Across, Aco Estate, Trademore Estate, Penthouse and surrounding areas in Lugbe, from Sunday, August 28, 2016 until Saturday, September 3, 2016, when electricity supply was restored. The prolonged outage was as a result of the failure of multiple equipment serving the affected areas and not disconnection as the report on Daily Trust appeared to suggest. It is also pertinent to state that about six days after supply was restored, the line serving Sabon Lugbe tripped but restoration of electricity to the area took less than 48 hours. Since then Sabon Lugbe has been receiving normal electricity supply. It is also important to stress here that AEDC duly apologized to all affected customers over that prolonged outage through radio announcements. We are, therefore, saddened that the report published by Daily Trust did not reflect the fact that the prolonged period of outage ended nearly two weeks before the report was published.
It is particularly worrisome to us that series of reports about complaints by AEDC’s customers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), often published in the Aso Chronicle section of Daily Trust are printed without our Company’s reaction. Another good example of such is a publication of August 10, 2016 titled “Kuje residents decry power outage, high bills”.
It is pertinent to state here that as a Company, AEDC has tremendous respect for the media, whose partnership it cherishes towards building a viable power sector for Nigeria. However, it is our belief that the Nigerian society is better off when the media ensures objectivity, impartiality and fairness to all parties at all times.
Shekarau is the Head, Public Relations and Media, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC)