… Alleged Poor Bills Payment
… Maltreatment of Staff
By our reporters
Officials of the Ibadan Electric Distribution Company (IBEDC), the company that supplies electricity power to Esa Oke community have sent a passionate appeal to the residents of the town to change their attitude towards payments of accumulated bills and treat their staff in a more civil manner.
The officials also advised that the youths of the town should co-operate better with their staff while on duty in the town.
Officials spoken to believed that, ‘it is by only doing these that the incessant power outages in the ancient town could be addressed and finally resolved’.
Speaking to the correspondent of www.esaoketodayonline.com, an official of the company spoken to at the Ilesha Undertaking Office believed that, ‘it would amount to an hyperbolic understatement if one blames the major cause of the epileptic electricity supply to Esa Oke on infrastructural deficit alone. Rather, the attitude of the people constitute the major cog in the reasonable electricity supply to the town’.
When the complaints of the residents, particularly the artisans, were becoming deafening, www.esaoketodayonline.com reached out to the IBEDC officials, both in Ibadan, Osogbo and Ilesha, investigating the cause of the perpetual darkness in Esa Oke, despite her huge economic potentials.
Speaking under strict anonymity, the technical staff, some who had earlier served in Esa Oke before, opened up to our correspondents on why the town is always mostly affected by power outages.
Every person spoken to blamed the attitude of the residents, especially some youths for the unpalatable electricity supply in the town.
www.esaoketodayonline.com was told authoritatively that “your people would always refused to pay bills, and insisting that their lines cannot be dropped, during debt recovery exercise”.
The staff cited several cases of assault of their staff while on debts recovering exercise. These, he said led to the relocation of some technical and marketing staff away from the town.
As we speak, the maintenance office of IBEDC in the old Post Office in Esa Oke has been shut down and relocated to the neighbouring Oke Imesi town, Ekiti State.
According to a former Manager, “at a point, some youths came to the office and insisted that each house in the town cannot pay more than two or three thousand naira per month. All entreaties to make them understand the billing system fell into deaf ears. Still the two or three thousand naira were not forthcoming at the end of the month”.
He disclosed further that when the placement of areas on Bands System came up, Esa Oke was first placed in Band B.
Band A customers are those who receive 20-24 hours of electricity supply daily.
Subscribers under Band B enjoy 16 to 20 hours of power supply, while those in Band C receive 12 to 16 hours daily. Band D subscribers benefit from eight to 12 hours of power supply each day, and Band E subscribers only receive four to eight hours of electricity supply daily.
This means Esa Oke will have power supply for between 16 – 20 hours per day. The tariff is around #67.00 – #70.00 naira per kilowatt.
According to a staff of IBEDC in Ibadan, the company, just like others across the country, has commenced the implementation of the Revised Service Based Tariff (RSBT). ‘RSBT with service at its core’ according to him is more beneficial to consumers, as tariff is based on availability of supply to your area.
www.esaoketodayonline.com gathered that the practice was that as supply improves, a customer will move to a higher Service Band and commensurate tariff rate with their hours of supply.
Customers could also be downgraded to lower Band if vending and payment of bills dropped.
The case of Esa Oke was poor response to payment of bills and poor attitude to the staff.
“The poor attitude of the people towards bills settlement forced the Undertaking Office to downgrade the town to Band D”, www.esaoketodayonline.com was told.
By this they could have power supply for between 8 hours per day. This is however, subject to supply of supply of power from Osogbo Sub-Station, through the National Grid. The tariff here is between #35 and #50 naira per kilowatt.
Therefore, moving down from Band B to Band D directly cut off the town from major consideration when planning for power distribution among the areas.
Another member of staff- a technical staff, also disclosed that another terrible practices within the town is that some houses with pre-paid metres often by-pass the metering system to connect directly to the main line.
On the technical problems, our investigations revealed that the instigator control to transfer currents to Esa Oke is located in Eti Oni, a suburb of Ijebu IJesa, some twelve kilometres to the town. He said, once there is power supply to the area, it will first come on in Ijebu IJesa, but would terminate in Eti Oni.
To connect Esa Oke to the power supply, they have to go to Eti Oni to put it on. This according to one of the former Manager in Esa Oke usually caused a lot of delay and in some cases, there might have been one technical issue or the other that might necessitate total cutting off of supply before they reach Eti Oni.
To solve this, he advocated moving the insulator to somewhere within the town.
Another former staffer in the Esa Oke IBEDC office also suggested the removal of tress and cutting down of bushes along the line from Ijebu Jesa to Esa Oke.
But he was told this has been done once or twice, by the community leadership in the town, he insisted that all the nearby trees should be removed to prevent the incessant trees falling on the mains cable and to aid their ability to access the lines during the rainy season.