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NERC Chides PHCN DISCOs on Poor Customer Service Delivery

By on October 9, 2012

PHCN Assets Valued at Over $30 billion are being sold for less than $2billion

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has blamed distribution companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) for the absence of cost effective tariff in the Nations electricity supply, which it referred to as ‘poor consumer service delivery practices’

This assertion was made in Abuja yesterday by the Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi during the flag-off a week-long programme organised by NERC in collaboration with the United States National Association of Regulatory Commissioners (NARUC).

Amadi said, “One of the real crises of this sector is lack of customer-centric by utilities. We have received several reports, people are not happy with the tariff, not because it is high, but they are yet to enjoy good service delivery”.

“They are complaining about bad billing system even though we have rolled out a methodology to sanitize estimated billing, but the billing is still going on and people are complaining.”

He advocated for the privatization of the power sector as well as the need to develop the capacity to standardize the level of customer service.

“For us, it is good to privatize and we are happy to be where we are now, but then, you have to prepare to develop capacity to regulate especially at the level of customer service.”

“We have had this for a while now and it happens every year. However, this year, we are focusing on thematic areas, we want to identify the areas where we have gaps as a regulator and close up on them through the wealth of experience that we can gain from the Michigan Public Service Commission, which is about 100 years old in operation.”

“We are trying to become a world-class regulator and we can only do that by learning from people that have been there for this long,” he added.

He disclosed that the program was designed as a means for the exchange of regulatory experience between NERC and NARUC.