By Ogaga Ariemu
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has launched a Power Outage Reporting (PORS) app on Monday.
Unveiling the app to the public, NERC chairman Sanusi Garba said the commission encourages all electricity consumers to key into the innovation by downloading the PORS app from Apple or Google Play store, adding that its operations are so simple that all cadres of customers can perform them.
According to him, the technology is packaged to facilitate the resolution of consumers’ complaints in real-time with just a few clicks on their phone, wherever they are, thus saving them the stress, time, and resources involved in going to the operator’s office.
Garba said the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, is being used as a pilot DisCo to launch the app, after which it will be rolled out to cover all the DisCos across the country.
“We decided to start this launch with Abuja, but there will be a national rollout for all distribution companies,” he noted, adding that such a massive project requires a test run, and Abuja was picked as the starting point.
He charged the DisCos to ensure full operation of the new technology to resolve customer power outage complaints in real-time.
On his part, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of AEDC, Christopher Ezeafulukwe, said the new technology introduced by NERC is a welcome development as it will help catalyse more data-based decisions on the part of the DisCos towards achieving the objectives of the power value chain.
“On the part of the distribution company, you can’t overemphasise that this will help catalyse more data-based decisions. And so we look forward to using this app to interact more, engage more, hear more from the customers, and then, more importantly, use that as a raw material to serve our customers better,” he stated.
