The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) says the 11 Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) received 151,938 complaints nationwide in the first quarter of 2019.
The information is contained in the First Quarter Report obtained from the website of NERC, the regulator of the industry, in Abuja on Monday.
The report said that the figure reflected an increase on the 136,393 complaints received in the last quarter of 2018.
It said that in spite of the rise, the number of complaints resolved by DisCos increased slightly from 86.9 per cent to 87 per cent during the same period.
“ During the period, Ikeja DisCo had the highest number of complaints, while Yola DisCo recorded the lowest customer complaints.
“The DisCos’ customer complaints centred on service interruption, poor voltage, load shedding, metering, estimated billing, disconnection, delayed connection, among others.
“During the quarter under review, all the DisCos received several numbers of complaints on each of the aforementioned key issues, ‘’ it said.
According to the report, the number of complaints on metering and billing increased during the period under review and still dominates the customer complaints.
The report indicated that metering and billing accounted for 61 per cent (92,626) of the total complaints received during the quarter under review as against 47 per cent (63,791) recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018.
”This implies that, on average,1,029 customers complained about metering and billing per day during the period,” it said.
According to the report, another issue of serious concern is service interruption, accounted for 8.5 per cent of customer complaints received in the quarter under review.
The report said that the commission, on a continuous basis, monitors the complaint handling and resolution process adopted by DisCos in order to address customers’ complaints.
It said that the commission followed up on the audit of the 11 DisCos’ compliance to service standards that were conducted in 2018, by reviewing the reports of the exercise.
“The commission has resolved that all DisCos should henceforth submit their customers’ complaints reports on a monthly basis.
“It further directed that the customer complaints handling software being introduced by DisCos should be subjected to a dry run for performance assessment,” it said.
According to the report, the commission strives to improve on the operation of its forum offices that were set up to adjudicate on consumers’ complaints not adequately resolved by the responsible DisCos.
The report said that as at end of the first quarter of 2019, the commission had established 30 forum offices for effective adjudication of customer complaints.
“In line with its 2017-2020 strategic plan, the commission continued to monitor the implementation of the Meter Asset Provider Regulation designed to address the metering gap and eliminate estimated billing in Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI),” it said.
