Oluwaseun Adetona, an Osun resident, paid N24,852 to the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) on July 28, 2016, for a new prepaid metre for his home in Ilesa, Osun State.

Adetona told FIJ that the metre was only installed three years after paying for it. He said IBEDC had consistently denied him a refund as provided for in a 2013 guideline by the Nigerian Electricity Commission (NERC).

He said IBEDC had refused to refund his purchase fee along with the accrued eight-year interest despite writing to them several times.

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“The metre was installed on January 25, but it returned to the IBEDC in the same year after it developed a fault,” Adetona told FIJ. “I wrote a series of letters to them to return it.

“Now, after returning the metre, I started to write to them again to refund what I paid for its purchase because the metre is a property of the IBEDC, and a refund alongside the accrued interest should be made through energy credits.”

Adetona, who bought his prepaid metre under the Cash Advance Payment for Metering Initiative (CAPMI), said that he had sent over three letters to the IBEDC business unit in Ilesa through his lawyer but his requests had all been ignored.

He added that he had also personally delivered two letters to their offices, which had also received no response.

The Osun-based resident is demanding a refund for his prepaid metre under NERC ORDER NO: NERC/05/0001/13, which states that customers are to be refunded the full cost of their metres through deductions from the monthly fixed charges: “The distribution company shall refund to the customer the full cost of the metre (but not a refund of the installation cost) with interest accrued through deductions from the monthly fixed charges.

“The amount advance by the customer shall attract a nominal interest charge of 12 per cent. The payment made by the customer shall be amortized over a maximum period of three years or as determined by the commission from time to time.”

FIJ also found on the IBEDC website that customers would be reimbursed at the points of vending.

“The metres belong to IBEDC because there will be a refund of the cost of the meter through equal installment of energy credit at the points of vending,” IBEDC wrote.

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When FIJ called IBEDC, Ibukun, the customer care representative who spoke with our reporter, said that only customers under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) plan, and not CAPMI, are eligible for a refund for their prepaid metre.

“For CAPMI metres, we do not have a refund under the scheme. We currently have this refund scheme and they would be reimbursed in the form of energy credits,” she said.

However, FIJ found her claim to be false, as a memo from NERC on August 8, 2015 (one year before Adetona’s purchase), signed by Usman Abba-Arabi, NERC’s head of public affairs, states that customers under the CAPMI are entitled to a refund of their meter fee.

“Under the scheme, willing electricity customers are allowed to pay into a dedicated account opened by the electricity distribution companies for purchase and installation of metres 45 days after payment,” NERC said in 2015.

“Such customers should be refunded their money with interest over a period of time by discounting the fixed charged element of their monthly bills.”