A Federal High Court sitting in Enugu has adjourned the case between the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) and electricity consumers under the aegis of South East Electricity Consumers Association (SEECA) to November 27, 2024.
The matter which was called up for hearing could not progress as the EEDC legal representative, Okwudili Agbo, pleaded with the the court for more time to respond to some papers served on his client by the defendants.
Council to the defendants, Ejike Ezenwa (SAN), who said that he was ready for the case, conceded to the plea for adjournment to allow the plaintiff file his reply.
The judge, M.G. Umar, adjourned the case to November 27 for hearing.
The EEDC had dragged SEECA to court for allegedly interfering in its operations in the South East by rallying other consumers against purported outrageous billing system and other anti-people activities of the company in the region.
EEDC’s counsel, Agbo, who spoke on why his client sued SEECA said that the Disco wanted the court to determine whether any other organization had the right to perform regulatory functions outside the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
‘Our clients observed that a certain group, which calls itself SEECA where issuing orders, directives, and threats to the customers of our clients. They were ordering our clients not to pay bills to our clients,” he said.
But National Chairman of SEECA, Okechukwu Obiora, said that the EEDC took the group to court for enlightening other electricity consumers on their rights and obligations concerning electricity supply.
He explained: “Our offence is that we came out to ask the EEDC why we still have about 70% of South Easterners on estimated billing? Why the outrageous billings? Why they are yet to give customers prepaid meters. They felt threatened by our information to our people and took us to court.”
He further noted that NERC investigated the complaints of the South East customers and found out that from January to September last year, EEDC as a Disco was owing consumers on estimated billing, bulk billing and community billing about N11.86billion.
“NERC agreed with the Discos on a calculated average that should be given to customers on estimated billing monthly, until they are metered. They called it CAP and EEDC has refused to abide by these agreement,” he said.
