The Victoria Garden City Property Owners and Residents Association, VGCPORA, has reiterated its commitment to exposing energy theft and meter bypassing in Victoria Garden City.

VGCPORA made this statement after they brought the meter tampering incidents in the estate, which was the subject of the recent media briefing by the Eko Electricity Distribution Company, EKEDC, to the attention of the Electricity Distribution Company.

It can be recalled that at the media briefing organised by EKEDC, Adeoye Fadeyibi, Managing Director, EKEDC, announced  that ‘’no fewer than 15 residents of Victoria Garden City ,VGC, are to be prosecuted for their alleged involvement in energy theft’’. VGCPORA stated that they encourage EKEDC to prosecute those VGC residents who are engaged in illegal activity as a deterrent.

According to the Architect Olusegun P. Ladega,  Chairman, VGCPORA, “not only did we expose the incidents and residences where bypass of meters occurred, we encouraged the EKEDC to prosecute those residents engaged in this illegal activity, and we shall continue to deploy our internal management mechanism to identify cases of meter tampering.”

VGCPORA however, pointed out that individual metering was not introduced in the estate a few months ago following agitations by residents for individual metering and billing, as claimed by the Managing Director of EKEDC.

Ladega stated that ‘’from inception, more than 25 years ago, VGC residents were individually metered and billed. Despite residences having individual meters, VGC was billed as a single customer from June 2007 to July 2008, an arrangement that was declared illegal by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, thus leading to a reversion to status quo of individual metering and billing.’’