PHCN: Prepaid meters as answer

Very rightly so, many Nigerians believe the Power Holding Coompany of Nigeria (PHCN), aka NEPA, to be about the most inefficient and corrupt public sector entity in the country. The challenge then is to do something about this over-amplified rot.

Days to the April, 2011 General Elections, yours truly attended a session at the Civic Centre, Lagos to brainstorm on new approaches to fixing the power problem. Speakers at the summit were the then minister of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, BPE Director-General Bola Onagoruwa and the then Special Adviser to the President on Power and now Minister, Professor Barth Nnaji.

Other participants included top-flight bankers with particular emphasis on power sector financing, the summit convener and Publisher of BusinessDay Newspaper, Mr. Frank Aigbogun, representatives of organized labour and my good friend, the Chairman of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, Dr. Sam Amadi.

As the discussions flowed, it was clearly apparent that something was being done, and fairly systematically too, to fix the nation’s overarching power problems. There was talk of statutory weekly status review meetings with the President as well as serious engagements with the World Bank, the private sector, labour, state governments and other stakeholders. Targets were being set, monitored and followed up. Indeed, a lot, it was revealed at that meeting, was being done to reverse the ill-fortunes of the sector.

Weeks after that meeting this writer has personally witnessed some of the changes that he had been praying for. Electricity supply to both his home at Arepo, Ogun State and his office in Oregun, Lagos has improved (to near-‘frightening’ levels, the comedians would joke!) and we now read about managers being punished for failing to meet scheduled targets.

One other thing that critically has to be done however is a frontal re-orientation of all service providers within the system to recognize and live by the maxim that indeed, ‘the customer is king.’ And there would be no better way to get this done than to set targets for the abolition of all other forms of billing (estimated bills, meter reading, etc) and their replacement with prepaid meters. 

Within this scenario, the customer, like the GSM scratch card user, would now assume responsibility for, and control over how much power he wants to use or not use! And you can only imagine how much corruption would have been crushed in that process.

This writer is also not oblivious of the rumuor that some of the existing prepaid meters are being compromised. The answer? Strengthen the security systems. And what about the charge that PHCN does not have the infrastructure to manufacture such huge numbers to service all of its customers? Small matter? Outsource this to those who can and like ballot papers, you will get them in pronto!

The point in all of this really is this: if Goodluck finally delivers on stable power supply (as we pray he should), then the next challenge would be how to ensure that this power is served to the consumer most justiceably, at the right price and with his active participation in the process. We should also be talking of a time to come when PHCN would be sued and compelled to pay damages when convicted to consumers whose gadgets are destroyed in power outages. 

But can the administration in the first place deliver on the provision of more electricity to our homes and offices? The signs are already there that it would be done if they step up their focus and not be distracted by booby-traps as the 6-year single term (which by the way may be good per se, but whose timing is clearly way off and suspicious!!)