AN OPEN LETTER TO MR BABATUNDE RAJI FASHOLA

Dear Honourable Minister,

We will like to congratulate you again for your appointment as Minister for Works, Power and Housing.

This is to draw your ears to another burden that will be added to the overstretched Nigerians through hike in electricity tariff that will commence by February 2016.
Just barely a week after your appointment you will recall that you were begging Nigerians to accept another hike in electricity tariff so as to enjoy better power supply.

Candidly, it is only in our clime that people pay for public services that will be rendered 4years later by public corporations. Without any reservation this policy is nothing but a yoke to compound problems for the masses.
According to NERC, there won't be monthly fixed charges again when the hike takes effect. This is highly half-hearted, it is like devil using right hand to give his victim something and using left hand to collect it back.

For the sake of the innocent public, this coming hike will be the third in 8 months of our government of change which is against Multi Year Tariff Order 2.1 agreement made in April 2015. The resolution stated as follows "the new tariffs are in the MYTO 2.1 for the period 1 April 2015 to December 2018 and they replace the tariffs in MYTO 2 for the period 1 June 2012 to 31 May 2017". This MYTO 2.1 started 1 April 2015 for Commercial and Industrial consumers while it was implemented 1 July 2015 for Residential consumers.

You can read Vanguard Newspaper dated 3rd June 2015 for further details on this.
www.vanguardngr.com/2015/06/the-new-electricity-tariffs-from-july-2015/

Sir, it is in public domain how DISCOs hiked tariffs through backdoor late October 2015.
Let us use consumers under Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company for example. Some residential consumers under R2 category have been paying N19.60 per kWh instead of N18.00 per kWh. Beside this hike, is an untold disparity among consumers on same category. If we should add the new increment to it that will amount to N32.00 per kWh. From the above calculation, removal of fixed charges should not warrant hike in tariff.

Another disgusting part of this new increase was the silence made about the total amount of new tariffs by stating only the incremental values, this is heartless.

Beside this increment, other atrocities these DISCOs are committing are prepaid services using to defraud innocent public. Consumers without prepaid meters are now paying before usage as monthly bills come first week of same month. We are still wondering how they usually arrived at bills for the month that is yet to reach half, if this is not estimation then what is it?.

Sir, you might not know numbers as you have said during ministerial screening but you should beware of ripples effects of this on the masses.
In fact, your romance with the same DISCOs your party defined as Jonathan's associates has put your integrity on a thin line.
While DISCOs' argument that the increment is needed to finance loan received from CBN is baseless. If we may ask why should private companies like DISCOs that got our distribution facilities at bazaar price and loans from CBN be using loan repayment as excuse to increase tariffs?

Sir, we hope you will critically look into all these for the sake public interest.

Also, we will like you to consolidate what you praised immediate past administration for, by putting in place surveillance modalities on our pipelines that supply gas to GENCOs as advised by Professor Nebo, former Minister of Power.

In the same vein, government should mandate DISCOs to close the gap between metered and unmetered consumers. As at now, over 70% of electricity consumers are still unmetered, we don't want Nigerians to keep paying for what they are not using.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" Martin Luther King Jr

Thank you.

Ifedayo Obi,

Good Governance Advocates.

Op hope you know that Fashola is only keeping watch over certain ministries for Oshiomole and Aregbesola?

Beautiful letter, but not comprehensive enough. Whose job exactly is it to fix defective pre-paid meters, and how long would it take to do so? As at today, there is no policy on the warranty period and after-sales support for meters. If I share my own story with you, on the wahala of getting someone to fix pre-paid meters that have gone bad... you will curse the DISCOs.

WHEN A 'WAILEE' BECOMES A WAILER

Lolx..nice one

OZAOEKPE:
WHEN A 'WAILEE' BECOMES A WAILER

This is a typical example of what comes out of a person who has empty air in that section where his brains are supposed to be. What a pity..

did Ifedayo marry Obi or what's the meaning of the name?

too long a post. summary please

@OP are you still talking about electricity charges when this govt is already making plans to introduce toll gate on federal high ways.

We have moved to the era of letter writing,hmmm everybody is going back to school. Be a real man see link

JustOzito:
too long a post. summary please

It is not a crime if you read it and summarize it for others.
Those that read it have just one head like you.