PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
The Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), in conjunction with the Access to Electricity Working Group, a coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), has launched an Electricity Distribution Tracker (EDT) app for electricity consumers in Rivers and Bayelsa states.
This is in a bid to promote transparency, accountability and efficiency in the electricity distribution value chain, towards achieving effective service delivery in the two South South states.
Walking newsmen and other stakeholders through the operations of the app on Wednesday October 24, 2018 in Port Harcourt, programme manager at SDN, Mrs Christiana Idasefiema said “We know that access to power have been a very huge issue in Niger Delta , most of the things we do include access to energy.”
She said “the launch of EDT tends to address issues of estimated billing, lack of transparency, lack of accountability, lack of fairness in terms of power distribution, so if We have accountable and transparent distribution, We will be happy and people will also be happy.”
Mrs Idasefiema who works on access to energy in partnership with PHED, CPC and NERC revealed that the platform will play a mediating role between Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) and customers.
Spokesperson of Access to Electricity Working Group, Comrade Green Isaac said “what led to the invention of EDT is that over the years customers keep suffering extortion from service providers, people like NERC who are supposed to monitor and supervise the service providers have not been able to see through this challenges, so we felt that as CSOs and non-state actors We can come together with a programme or project that will challenge the service providers and also make the customers to be able to access information and report whatever challenges they have through the EDT.”
Another member of Access to Electricity Working Group, Barrister Arochukwu Ogbonna (Esq) said “it will enable interaction, open up the space for customers, policy makers and DISCOs that is electricity providers to meet at the platform, so that challenges associated with electricity distribution such as bad infrastructure, inadequate electricity supply, estimated billing will be resolve quickly, so that conflicts between electricity providers and the public will be reduced”.
Meanwhile the executive director of an advocacy group, ‘NEPA Wahala,’ Barr Emeka Ojoko said “electricity customers can address their problems by first writing to DISCOs that provide them electricity and if after fifteen working days the matter is not resolved, the customers can write to National Electricity Regulatory Council(NERC) and NERC will fix a date to hear the matter and if the customer is not satisfied with the judgement of NERC, He or she can appeal the judgement of NERC and if the customer is not also satisfied with the appeal, the customer can then proceed proceed to court”.
EDT app can be downloaded from Google play store on android phone. The application serves to aggregate responses from consumers to inform the mobile application administrators (as well as the PHED and NERC, CPC and the Access to Energy Working Group of Civil Societies) real time about consumers experiences with issues such as load shedding, distribution, billing any other electricity issues they face, as well as act as information hub to consumers for effective use of electricity in their homes and business.
