The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) has threatened to disconnect scores of residential consumers in Ogun State over N67 billion debt owed to the company.

This is just as the IBEDC urged Nigerians not to cover the company officials indulging in unwholesome practices, saying about 20 of such erring staff had been sent packing in the last five months.

The Chief Executive Officer of the IBEDC, Engr Kingsley Achife, said this at a community engagement held at the IBEDC office in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on Monday, October 16.

Achife, who was represented by the Lead Media Relations Officer, IBEDC, Ibadan, Busolami Tunwase, said the time is now for the consumers to begin to pay their debts to avoid disconnection.

He said the debt is already a burden to the IBEDC, adding that the company called for engagement with the customers to seek better working relationships and to particularly appeal to them to help in paying their debts.

Achife said: “We have called this meeting to seek better working relationships with our customers but this we cannot do if they are not paying for the services being rendered.

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“As we speak, customers in Ogun State are owing us over N67 billion; this is very huge and we all know that no business can survive with suffocating debt like this. So we are appealing to them to pay up before we begin to disconnect them.

“Another issue is that of theft of the energy whereby the customers are short-changing the company. They are either not paying for what they use or not paying completely for the energy consumed.

“Some customers do this by bypassing their metres; some don’t have metres at all, they just connect to their houses directly. They do these mostly in the night, these are pure economic sabotage. The people should stop this, they should get their metres and eradicate problems of crazy billings.

“In addition to this is the use of illicit meters, when the customers don’t buy such metres from us the money goes elsewhere and we have made the metres available. You don’t even need a third party to obtain your metres, all you have to do is to pay into a designated bank account.

“Another thing here is the dangers of using illicit metres. This could cause fire outbreaks and electrical shock among others. To avoid this danger, the customers should patronise IBEDC their metres which has been tested and approved by relevant regulatory bodies.”

Achife also urged the customers to stop beating and maiming IBEDC officials, saying they can always report such staff for appropriate disciplinary measures.

He added: “In the last four of five months, about 10 of our staff found wanting have been shown the exit. We encourage our customers to always blow the whistle and once we carry out our investigation and the person is found culpable, the company will take up such individual because one of our core values is integrity.”

The Star