End to corruption: SEPCO forces people to pay excess bills, claims ban on adjustments

Federal govt had given orders to take action against officials recording incorrect readings

SUKKUR: By telling their customers that the federal government has banned bill adjustments, Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) officials are forcing people to pay up their exaggerated bills.

They are using a federal government notification from two months ago to justify their claims when, in fact, the water and power ministry had asked for action to be taken against all officials found recording incorrect meter readings.

Vicious cycle of corruption

Every time a resident received an exorbitant amount of electricity bill, they would make their way down to the Sepco office and were told to visit the relevant sub-divisional officer. This officer would ask them to submit an application, which would be forwarded to the revenue office and would lie there for a long time.

 

To cut short this procedure, the officers would offer a bill adjustment for approximately half the price of the overcharge. The officer would pocket this amount and then adjust the bill in their records. In this way, Sepco officials were adjusting bills worth millions of rupees every year and lining their pockets with nearly as much.

"The main purpose of issuing excess reading and detection bills to the customer is to record higher revenues during the fiscal year," said a Sepco officer on the condition of anonymity. Later, the corrupt officer would accept a bribe and start the bill adjustment. They would record exaggerated bills for someone else and the cycle kept on going, he added.

Misreading signs

Nearly two months ago, the federal government seemed to have caught on the problem and issued a notification to take action against those officers who were recording incorrect readings and issuing excess bills.

The ministry has asked us to follow the rules before going for adjustments, explained Sepco's commercial manager Hadi Dino Shaikh. According to the rules, the officials responsible for recording excess readings or issuing detection bills to consumers should be punished first, he said.

Shaikh told The Express Tribune that it had become common practice for the officials to adjust bills without even bothering to issue an explanation to the officials who made the fault. To discourage this practice, the ministry issued strict orders to take punitive action against the responsible officials, he added.

These directives are, however, being publicised as a ban on adjustments all together. A Sepco official admitted that the sub-divisional officers are telling consumers about the ban just to save the skin of their subordinates.

Problem persists for residents

Meanwhile, the people of Sukkur continue to feel the burden of exaggerated bills. Muhammad Momin, the owner of a small kiosk for clocks and wrist watches, was shocked to receive a detection bill of Rs7,000 in June 2014 when he consumes an average of 20 units a month. He complained to a sub-divisional officer, who assured him his bill will be corrected.



But instead of issuing a correction, the officer sent him another detection bill of Rs7,000 the following month. It has been more than six months and Momin has yet to receive a corrected bill. "I am a poor man and I cannot afford to pay an electricity bill of more than Rs2,000 per month," he said, adding that he may wind up his business soon.

For his part, Sepco's operation manager Abdul Ghaffar Mako said that no adjustments will be done without punishing the responsible officials. Earlier bills were adjusted without taking any action against the responsible meter readers but now they will not go unpunished, he promised.

"All the officials, especially the meter readers, have been warned that they will be fired if they are found indulging in wrong practices," he said, adding that the utility will ensure their bill adjustments do not exceed the limit of Rs1 million a year.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2014.