IBEDC Lost Over N130million To Illicit Meters In Osun-Regional Head

The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) has said it is losing an average of N130 million in revenue in Osun state due to the use of illicit meters by some residents.

It added that about 15,000 illicit meters existed in its network across the state which resulted in the gross revenue lost.

Speaking at a town hall meeting stakeholders in Osogbo on Wednesday, IBEDC Regional Head for Osun, Engr. Oluwatoyin Akinyosoye said the company had stopped the installation of the illicit meters, which use card to load electricity, since 2013.

Participants at the stakeholders town hall meeting

He said: “In Osun region, conservatively, we have about 15,000 of these illicit meters in our network and the average revenue loss every month due to this is over N130 million.

“These meters consume energy and the revenue is not coming to us. That is a huge loss. If we can curb these illicit meters, we know that we can plunge back the revenue to our purse to serve our customers better.

“These illicit meters were gotten through the backdoor, unknown to us till now. Most of these meters are the ones that you have to use a card for before you can load.

“As a company, we stop the installation of these types of meters since 2013. So, any other one installed between 2013 till now are illicit meters”.

Akinyosoye urged those using the meters to come forward to address the issue, warning that those who failed to do so will face the wrath of the law.

“The message we have for those using the illicit meters is for them to come to our office to inform us about it and we assure them that we will only remove the meter and advice them on the steps to take to get a meter legally. But if we catch any customer, we will disconnect the customer, charged him or her the used revenue, and of course, face prosecution”, he added.

In IBEDC we have different interventions on metering, we have metering through the meter service providers, where the customer will pay for the meter and the cost of the meter will be refunded to them. We also have IBEDC roll out intervention where we give meters free to our customers and national metering program intervention by federal government that was the three major metering intervention in IBEDC.