Electricity regulator reassures constant policing

ARSEL urges customers to table complaints on time and advocates an energy reserve.

Cameroonians have certainly been wondering aloud where the regulator of the electricity sector had gone to amidst epileptic power supply they have been going through of late.

As despicable as the power outages are with diverse prejudices on households and industries, many a customer go away with the feeling that the regulator and the operator are bed fellows and so the poor customers are left alone to gnash their teeth in either darkness or damages caused by the intermittent electricity supply.

But the Director General of the Electricity Sector Regulatory Agency, ARSEL, Jean-Pierre Kedi rather sounds reassuring of what he termed the continual policing to ensure that both the operator and consumers find a common ground.

In a chat with Cameroon Tribune, Mr Kedi said ARSEL has been contributing enormously to the development of the electricity sector in the country and the improvement of consumer protection.

The regulator’s activity report since 2012 shows that ARSEL has been playing its policing work through diverse actions within and without the office with much to show already as impact on the sector. For instance, there is the energy efficiency project which seeks to improve the economic management of the available electricity capacity.

Cameroon, Mr Kedi noted, has an installed electricity capacity of 1,400 MW but based on losses incurred during production and transport, the country hardly attains 1,000 MW for distribution. There is also the Invest ‘Elect project which promotes rural electrification through the use of renewable energy with over 300 sites identified throughout the national territory.

As good as these may sound, customers’ worries are on the constant supply of the scarce but indispensable service, the sometimes ambiguous bills vis-à-vis supply and the controversial penalties levied on customers. To this, the Director General of ARSEL said his institution signed a decision to readjust the tariff of the electricity sector in 2012 with target to ensure stability in the tariffs of the social group of consumers who form about 62 per cent of electricity consumers at FCFA 50/kWh.

He added that the move permits for meter reading and billing to be done monthly, gives consumers the possibility to choose the metering system they want as well as possibility of prepaid consumption upon the validation of the procedure by the regulator. ARSEL, he added, is also militating for the use of smart metering system to permit consumers better monitor their consumption and in so doing reducing fraud.

As if to tell customers that the regulator barks and bits, Jean-Pierre Kedi disclosed that the regulator levied penalties on the operator amounting to FCFA 11.8 billion in 2014 and already FCFA 2.5 billion in 2015 for poor quality of service and the non technical losses registered.

He said ARSEL has also put in place an electronic platform for the management of complaints and a call centre to get consumers’ difficulties. But the way out, he noted, is having an electricity reserve, carry out offensive planning, put in place a consumer-friendly marketing system for electricity as well as diversify energy sources through micro and macro projects.