Facts Behind The Discontinuation Of Standalone (UNISTAR) Meters In Our Network

The Management of EEDC wishes to provide clarifications on the discontinuation of the use of obsolete standalone meters used by very few customers within our network. Unfortunately, this exercise has been misunderstood by some stakeholders.

For purposes of clarity, out of over 1.3 million customers of EEDC, close to 400,000 customers are metered with more than 250,000 meters installed within the last 3 years. This underscores EEDC’s commitment to ensuring that all customers are appropriately metered. Less than 40,000 customers using the standalone meters are affected by this exercise, and they can only be found in 8 Districts out of the 18 which we have.

EEDC communicated in writing to the affected customers the increasing difficulty in providing support for the card reader system used in vending these meters over three months ago. These card readers are now only available in a handful of our Service Centers, with most of them malfunctioning.

In addition, due to age and obsolescence, these meters are no longer reliable and the vending system is inconvenient to customers.

EEDC recently upgraded its billing system and the new system is designed to make customers experience even better.

Following our communication to the affected customers, a good number of them subscribed to the new meters which have been installed for them, while the few remaining customers who are yet to get the new meters are affected by this discontinuation.

To address the issues arising from this exercise, EEDC has taken the following steps in implementing this decision.

1. Creation of a dedicated helpline (0815 082 5367) to handle all concerns and enquiries associated with this exercise for efficient operations.
2. Constitution of several teams for each Service Center to ensure timely migration of affected customers to the new prepaid meters.
3. Only the customers on the obsolete standalone meters are affected by this exercise, and they are less than 40,000 in number.
4. For customers that still have unused credit in their meter accounts, these credits will be transferred to their new meter accounts once our team of installers arrive their locations for this exercise.
5. For those who have run out of credit, they are encouraged to call the Helpline immediately and new meters will be promptly installed for them.
6. To address the immediate financial burden on the affected customers, EEDC has undertaken to install new meters under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme without the requirements for upfront full payment, while the installment repayment will be spread over up to 24 months. MAP is the metering program designed and approved by the Federal Government of Nigeria and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

We hope our esteemed customers appreciate our genuine intention and assure them of our continued commitment towards delivering improved services.

Signed: MANAGEMENT, EEDC