Enugu Chamber of Commerce Industry Mining and Agriculture (ECCIMA) has raised the alarm over an alleged fraud going on at the Enugu Electricity Distribitiion Company ( EEDC), saying that EEDC shortchanges the Chamber with it’s newly released band categorization , and billings.
President of ECCIMA, Sir Odeiga Jideonwo lamented that the distribution company categorized their feeder covering Golf estate,G. R. A. Enugu( location of the Trade Fair permanent site)as Band A, increased their tariff, when they don’t supply power to the area up to 20 hours in a day, , which is fraudulent.
Jideonwo made that known in an interview with newsmen on Monday, in Enugu.
He said , “the federal Government rather ,NERC , had categorized electricity consumers in various Bands.. Band” A” is meant to have customers or consumers who have 20 hours and above supply in a day. In most other states, they were honest with it. If a particular feeder does not qualify or does not have up to 20 hours supply feeder they will not have that feeder as a Band” A” feeder.
“Now, the cost difference is about 300% What EEDC did once they got that directive, they moved feeders that do not have up to 20 hours supply to the band A and they now pay about three times more than what they used to pay ,which is wrong. That is not the directive”, Jideonwo said .
He explained that trade fair ground is under Band A, which should not be.”Now, here is under Band A ,Golf feeder is under Band A. We were paying 60± per kilowatt hour before; now we are paying 200+ per kilowatt hour . As we speak, there is no power supply. We have all been out of power supply for today for more than 10 hours but yet, this is categorised as Band A, he said.
The President called on NERC to call EEDC’ to order, saying,,”So, we are please calling on NERC to call EEDC to order. What they are doing is tantamount defrauding the South Easterners. So, it’s important to us , it is not in tandem with the theme of this fair .
“The theme of this fair is “Encouraging local production” and this is against that. Industries will suffer If you pay the cost of diesel because you don’t have power and pay extremely high tarif for the few hours that you had power supply, that doesn’t aid productivity and it hurts our economy in the long run.
Speaking on the just concluded 35th Enugu International trade fair, ECCIMA president said, “the trade fair was successful judging by how our trade fair had been in the recent past. As far as this trade fair is concerned, our number had tripled with both exhibitors and visitors. So, in all I will say ,this has been a success and also ,the quality of the exhibition we had, it’s also a huge improvement over what we had in the recent past.
So, my impression like I said, and I will repeat it over and over again, it’s a success. We are happy with what we achieved this time around, but we are not resting. We see this as stepping stone. We will build on the gains that we had achieved this time to have a better outing ,come 2025. We will also look at areas we did not get it right , Jideonwo said.
He said they will make a lot of changes,, which will include, completely change the way they conduct their fair. Jideonwo said he believed fairs should be such that visitors, participants should have a good experience,. He added that that’s why they were setting up an Exhibition hall to house not less than 200 exhibitors.
” This is one out of about 6 of such buildings here. So, this is the first phase So, come next year, visitors experience, exhibitors experience will be quite different. That would also affect prices of goods because our exhibitors will pay less. It will cost them less to erect such expensive structures that they normally erect .
“You will realize that with these buildings, prices will be low because it cost the exhibitors less.. Come next year , we will be in an air conditioned room.. After this, we will l have meeting and take decisions to go forward”., Jideonwo said.
Meanwhile, on EEDC’, efforts were made to get the reaction of the organization but responses to the messages sent were not received
Author: Maureen Ikpeama