What would have spelt doom for workers/staffers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria Akwakuma District office was averted on Tuesday afternoon by one of the leaders of Spitbat Neighbourhood Association Nze Jude Akwarandu who appealed to the angry youths of the neighbourhood not to take laws into their hands. The youths were charged and ready to match to the PHCN district office, Akwakuma, to cause mayhem for alleged fraudulent practices by the company staffers.
The youths numbering more than fifty (50) were charged/irritated by the outrageous estimated bills of the month January distributed by the office. Their anger was not only for the fact that power supply has been very epileptic since the beginning of the year but that the billings were not according to the meter readings but on a very high estimation of N8,894 as against the former N4000 plus. Most of the affected youths have resolved not to pay any money and will wait for the field workers to come and cut their wire for non-payment of bills.
Mr Okey Nwokedi speaking on behalf of the youths accused the company staffers of fraudulent practice but promise to take it up to any level to correct the abnormality/fraud. “How can the company collect money from house owners to install metres and at the end of the day, the metre will not be used. “Is it not fraud to give a person with a working metre an estimated bill?” Mr Nwokedi lamented.
In a related development, the residents of Wetheral road started from Cherubim junction, Alaenyi Street and Onumonu Street recently had to contribute a total some of 50,000 to enable PHCN buy parts to repair their damaged transformer.
Speaking to Imo Trumpeta, a resident of one of the affected areas, Mr Ikechukwu Okoro lamented that even when the PHCN staff collect huge sums of money as electricity bills, they can’t still effect repairs on their transformers not to talk of bringing new ones.
He continued that just this week, their houses have been visited with the February estimated bills which are so outrageous, such as, 10,000, 15,000 and 20,000 as against the normal 2,500, 3,500 and 5,000 they use to charge.
However, when Weekend Trumpeta called on the zonal office in Owerri, the CSO Mr Ben confirmed the agony of their customers but revealed that as a result of a problem with the machines in the computer section, where they had to bring in another printer from Enugu office to prepare the bill. According to him, the new machine could not capture the readings that were wiped by the damaged machine, so they have to result to estimation.
