SUNDAY LETTERS - 15/8/2004
NEPA Billing System
Sir, I have always been bothered that the use of estimates by NEPA, as opposed to a billing system that relies on meter-reading, is an official policy of the NEPA management. A NEPA official confirmed my fear with the explanation that estimated billing is used only in situations when meter readers cannot access the customer's premises!
I now wonder if it is also official policy to read the meters wrongly in favour of NEPA to the tune of about 1000 per cent. The cyclometer, that is the type of meter we have, has six digits. The last digit is fractional. It is therefore painted red while the others are black. This is not to be included in the reading. NEPA's blue card, usually tucked under the meter, has provision for only five digits further suggesting the exclusion of the sixth.
Nigerians need an official reaction from NEPA on the abuse of this process. If it is confirmed that this is an error then we may have been paying a whooping 1000 per cent on top of what we really consume.
This may explain the difficulties being experienced by the majority of Nigerians in paying their bills. Corruption therefore thrives. Our landscape is now littered with consumer feeder cables that are cut and fixed as a monthly routine. All in a bid to force us pay what we may not afterall owe!
The NEPA authorities should abandon their aloofness and set up fora for rubbing minds with their customers. The present culture of high-handedness can not be sustained.
Omo Ejide Odua,
Lagos
Railway Pensioners
Sir: Kindly write an editorial on the horrible state of pensioners of the Nigerian Railway Corporation who have not been paid for 25 months. Some of them have died, others are sick and majority are destitute. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, President Olusegun Obasanjo does not want to pay the arrears of pensions. Yet, he receives his pensions. The retirees of federal ministries are paid regularly leaving out pensioners of parastatals, especially the Nigerian Railways.
Victor Ifedi
Lagos
State Of The Nation
Sir: As a little boy receiving his first religious lessons, I thought the expression "a wicked generation" referred to people who would pinch you most painfully. Now, I know better as an adult living in a country where pensioners from public service are owed huge arrears of entitlement, roads are more likely to lead to the next world, public utilities are sabotaged, hospitals are medicine-free, four petroleum refineries cannot produce refined products even though three of them are located next door to the raw material, while the country, the biggest black one on the planet contributed in 2002 the least to education in terms of proportion of GNP behind only Somalia (see 2004 edition of Guinness World Records).
No one has not forgotten human corpses left in public places for the elements to dispose of, with insecurity bestriding the land in a struggle of the survival of the meanest. All these have consistently translated into one of the world's lowest Human Development Index score which means a high Human Misery Index.
The Federal Government has withheld funds from Lagos State not to mention the Federal instigation of road, or is it streets, fights. Not even the advisory plea of the Supreme Court that funds be released to at least pay salaries of workers would move the Federal Government, fearsome Government. It is puzzling that the Federal Government can deprive a state, still a part of the country inhabited by humans, of funds simply because it does not recognise the state's newly created local government areas. Why not simply allocate on the basis of the old local government areas Indeed, the Federal Government acts in mysterious ways. All those puny State Governments, or Small Governments, would do well to recognise the Federal Government.
What is happening to Lagos State would provide more ammunition to those critics who feel we do not operate true federalism in which states contribute to the central government. But before castigating the Federal Government for present wickedness who can vouch that the State Governments will be any better if the shoe was on the other foot State governments generally bully local governments, which in turn most likely lord it over wards! That is the pecking order in the "Power Show" that characterises governance or leadership in black Africa with leaders still seeing themselves and being seen as gods or their representations.
We can only dream of a distant future era in which power is utilised for service by facilitating the provision of water, food, housing, education, healthcare, transportation and energy not to mention other welfare services such as paying pensions! Power needs not be for crushing people underfoot like cockroaches. Leaders must remember that it is the led who give them credibility and without them a leader is nothing. Even a tyrant needs agents and must have people to tyrannise!
Michael Aken'Ova
Ibadan
Betrayal Of Trust
Sir: I want to express my displeasure and state of mind over MTN's
inconsistency. I registered for the MTN 4 U programme on April 7 and was giving a pin number on the same day. The first quarter of my registration ended on July 7 when I was to be rewarded according to the amount of money I have used. According to MTN's rule of the game a registered subscriber is to be rewarded N450 on every N15, 000. As at July 7, I had used N234,000 and was supposed to be rewarded with about N6,000 and some fraction. I have made several calls concerning this reward to the customer care consultant and the response I get w as either I should please hold on for some time or they will send my reward by the end of July.
I checked my account to confirm if my reward has been sent, I discovered that my first quarter has been cancelled and another account has been opened for me for the next quarter which started on August 3, 2004 and to end on November 3, 2004 and rewarded the sum of N450 for the N24,000 which I spent for this quarter. It is like putting the cart before the horse.
My first quarter reward has to be made before another one can be entered into. I do not know the reason why MTN as rich as they are should be cheating a loyal customer. Econet has a similar programme. Every subscriber that uses up to N50,000 will be given N5,000 and they have been giving their customers due credit without any problem; a friend has just collected his. It is advisable for MTN to stop chewing more than what it can swallow and stop betraying the trust of its loyal customers in order to retain its acclaimed leadership status. It is injustice, cheating, deceiving and act of inconsistency.
Olawale Owonikoko
Iseyin, Oyo State
Highway Managers
Sir: Permit me to express my opinion on what I have been able to observe in recent months about the activities of street sweepers working under the "Highway Managers" of Lagos State.
After regular and detailed observations of street sweepers activities in various areas of Lagos, one has been able to establish for a fact that most if not all of them usually dispose of the sand and debris they sweep off the roadsides into the drainages provided on such roadsides; as this, appears to be the easiest mode available to them for the disposal of debris collected after the day's work .
It therefore behoves on the people in position of authority in this regard, to use their good offices to remedy this situation. This includes officials of the Lagos state ministry of environment and the Lagos State Waste Management Authority.
The street sweepers should also be retrained to appreciate the fact that road drainages are entirely meant for the quick and effective channelling of run off surface water on the roads to ensure longer life-span for the roads and not for easier disposal of debris or sand swept from these roads.
Femi Shodunke,
Lagos
