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Stakeholders urge more engagements, courteous service as MainPower plans installation of 75,000 prepaid meters in Enugu

Maureen Ikpeama5 months ago5 months ago3805 mins

Stakeholders of MainPower Electricity Distribution Limited (MEDL) have called on the company’s management to ensure frequent engagements with them so as to address electricity issues promptly, just as the company has revealed plans to install prepaid meters to its 75,000 estimated unmetered customers.

They made the call on Thursday in Enugu during a Stakeholders’ Engagement programme being one of the activities to mark the company’s ongoing Safety Week.

They also urged the company to continue to train and retrain its staff, especially field staff, on courteous and good customers’ relations.

The Chairman, Naija Inclusive Electricity Customer Advocacy Intervention, Chinedu Ugwu, in his speech, urged MainPower management to attend to piled- up complaints from consumers particularly technical issues that had lingered for few years now.

Ugwu, whose NGO intervenes in electricity customers’ complaints in Enugu State, commended MainPower management for setting up the Quick Response Team (QRT) to attend to technical fault promptly.

He noted that there was backlog of complaints logged already which needed to be cleared.

“It is only through a constant stakeholders’ engagement at the state and district levels that customers can easily interface with management directly and for them to understand customers’ complaints and pains.”

A customer, Chris Ozobu, called on MainPower to improve on its customers’ relations especially its field workers manner of approach to customers.

“Someone that is serving the public should be humane, friendly and speaking to customers with the highest sense of responsibility and courtesy,” Ozobu said.

Another customer, Anthony Nwele, urged MainPower to remove him and other people within the Maryland axis of Enugu from estimated billing system.

Nwele noted that since January till date, the rate of epileptic electricity supply had been on the increase, while the estimated bill he received remained high without reducing to be commensurate with power provided.

Responding, the Managing Director of MEDL, Dr Ernest Mupwaya, said that MainPower planned to install pre-paid meters to the estimated 75,000 unmetered customers in Enugu State within two years.

“We are planning through special arrangements and some interventions to provide pre-paid meters to 40,000 customers this year and another 40,000 in 2027 to take care of the remaining outstanding.

Stakeholders at the event

“MainPower will make its staff training and retraining more frequent for positive staff re-orientation and ensure closer supervision to ensure what is learnt is practiced in the field to get our customers served better.

“We will work out modalities for constant stakeholders and customers engagement in order to ensure robust feedback leading to better services to our customers and enshrining international best practices,” he said.

He noted that the company had invested multi-million naira in fixing faults and installation breakdowns, assuring the customers that with the QRT system the company would reduce technical and installation repair time to improve customers experience.

Mupwaya said that the state would soon experience monumental increase in electricity supply when the state-initiated 660 mega-watt coal-fire power plant comes on stream, adding: “It will be a huge electricity turn around”.