The community of Umuawulu in Anambra State’s Auka South Municipality has threatened to close the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company’s Auka office if it refuses to restore utilities to the community within two weeks. , under the auspices of the Umuaul Electricity Consumers Forum, wrote to the EEDC calling for the immediate restoration of power to the area as the EEDC has completed its curtailment process.
The letter, co-signed by the coordinator and convener, Comrade Oshita Obi, and his secretary, Another Kingsley Oniebuchi, was released to journalists on Tuesday.
According to the letter, the community is kicking against the continuous blackout, adding that there is no basis for the EEDC to put them in darkness still, having concluded their de-bulking process.
It was also copied to the state Commissioner of Police and the Director-General of the Department of State Security, Anambra command.
In the letter, the community said it has settled all debts to the electricity company and met all the necessary conditions for debulking six transformers in the area.
It added that the debulking process was completed in February 2022, when the last verification exercise was done.
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The community, therefore, demanded the immediate restoration of electricity supply to all the transformers that have concluded de-bulking.
They, therefore, threatened that after two weeks of the receipt of the demand letter, if EEDC failed to energise their transformers that have completed the debulking process, they would mobilise the consumers to occupy the EEDC office in Awka until it restored electricity to Umuawulu community.
Obi, while speaking on the restoration, said that EEDC is supposed to render service and not exploit the citizens.
He said, “Enumeration and verifications have also been concluded for all the six transformers. Electricity consumers in the communities have paid for the meters, some installed while some are yet to be installed.
“There is no electrical installation in the community provided by EEDC. The community bought everything.
The community has about six MD meters transformers. The old indebtedness was about N39m, but EEDC said it was doing promo and gave us a discount of 30 percent, and that has been done.
“After the debulking, the community decided to go for meters and paid for 29, and 14 were brought while only nine were installed. After two weeks, the community will mobilise over 2,000 people to shut down the EEDC office.
“The community has written to the police and DSS about the development. EEDC only inherited asset from NEPA but refused to inherit liability. The money paid for the debulking were inherited from NEPA.”
While reacting, the Head of Corporate Communications, EEDC, Emeka Ezeh said the company had energised the transformers that met the required conditions.
Ezeh pointed out that the community had taken the EEDC to the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, and the resolution was that they should acquire meters through MAP.
“The community in question took us to NERC, and the resolution was that they should acquire meters through MAP.
“We have also energised the transformer that met with the conditions, which is to obtain undertaking from individual customers that are not able to pay for meters, to connect them and bill them on estimation, while those not willing to be on estimation will request to be disconnected,” he added.
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