By CONSTANCE ATHEKAME

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on Wednesday said that it received 4,180 complaints in the fourth quarter of 2024 through the Customer Complaints Unit (CCU).

The commission announced this in its 2024 Fourth Quarter Report published on its website in Abuja.

According to NERC, out of the 4,180 complaints received, 1,231 have been resolved, corresponding to a 29.45 per cent resolution rate.

The report said that the resolution rate represents a 1.70 percentage point decrease compared to the 31.15 per cent resolution rate recorded in the third quarter of 2024.

?Customers of Ikeja and Eko Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) lodged 1,731 and 836 complaints respectively accounting for 41.41 per cent, and 20.00 per cent of the total complaints lodged at NERC-CCU.

?Conversely, Aba Power had the lowest number of complaints with eight amounting to 0.19 per cent,?? it said.

The report said that the commission noted the poor resolution rate of 29.45 per cent of complaints lodged at the NERC-CCU in the quarter under review.

According to the commission, it is taking steps to improve the speedy resolution of complaints by DisCos.

The report said that during the quarter under review, customer?s complaints about metering constituted 36.82 per cent of the total complaints.

It listed other common issues among the 4,180 complaints received to include billing which accounted for 31.24 per cent, service interruption 15.50 per cent and tariff bands15 (6.29%).

These four complaint categories cumulatively accounted for 89.86 per cent of the total complaints in the quarter.

?The complaints on billing that were resolved during the quarter resulted in a credit adjustment on customers? bills to the tune of N40.2 million.??

The report also said that all DisCos received 275,681 complaints in the fourth quarter of 2024, adding that this translated to a 16.13 per cent decrease compared to the 328,696 received in the third quarter of 2023.

According to the report, Port Harcourt DisCo received the highest number of complaints representing 54,683, which is 9.84 per cent of total complaints received.

It said that Yola DisCo received the least number of complaints 1,917, representing 0.69 per cent of total complaints received.

?Nine DisCos recorded a decline in the number of customer complaints received in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the third quarter of 2024.

The report said that Kaduna, Kano, Eko, and Abuja recorded the most reductions.

Benin, Aba and Ikeja DisCos recorded an increase in the number of customer complaints received between the third and fourth quarter of 2024. (NAN)

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