Since the start of the 2011 financial year, the Electricity Sector Regulatory Agency (ARSEL) has received telephone calls and consumer inquiries relating to the various inconveniences caused to them by the public electricity service. Among other complaints, AES SONEL subscribers complain about the lack of reimbursement of the overpayment due to them by the operator AES SONEL due to the unilateral increase in tariffs it has applied to electricity users. until the end of 2010.
The general objective was to monitor the state of commercial and technical relations between AES SONEL and its subscribers.
More specifically, ARSEL intended:
- Confirm or deny that AES SONEL bills consumers for electrical energy consumption according to the 2008 tariff schedule;
- Regarding the reimbursements announced by AES SONEL, make sure that the procedure agreed between ARSEL and AES SONEL is respected;
- Certify the handing over of assets to users on the overpayment;
- Certify the reliability of the metering system;
- Confirm the depth of the fraud and describe the different methods used by the parties;
- Confirm the conformity of the interior electrical installations to the minimum (to be established) required;
Among other findings:
- 46% of bills from domestic LV subscribers do not comply with the 2008 tariffs set by the Electricity Sector Regulatory Agency (ARSEL);
- 77% of subscribers say they have not received the overpayment by AES SONEL after the agreement with the government;
- 45% of subscribers find it tedious to pay their bills at the counters, particularly because of the long waiting time;
- Concerning the safety of electrical installations: 95.97% of electrical installations are not equipped with lightning arresters and 75.7% of installations have no earth circuits;
- 86.12% of cases are recorded in Yaoundé;
- 32.57% of subscribers report that the electrical power is systematically cut off at a certain time of the day, and 33.16% say that the cuts occur more than twice a week;
- In the event of intervention for a problem reported by a subscriber, AES SONEL agents take in 51.05% of cases more than 24 hours to intervene.
The following report presents the details of this survey for the four zones selected (Yaoundé and Matomb, Douala, Bamenda)