The management of Benin Electricity Distribution Company plc (BEDC) has banned members of staff from collecting cash from customers across its franchise states of Edo, Delta, Ondo and Ekiti.
Henry Ajagbawa, managing director of the electricity distribution company announced the ban on Wednesday during a meeting with billing and payment agents in Benin City.
Ajagbawa explained that agents have been engaged to collect bills from customers for the company, not the staff, noting that the company has broken the monopoly of having only one aggregator with 1,650 agents by engaging additional 11 aggregators and 10,000 agents across the four states.
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“We have engaged additional 11 aggregators who will come with about 10,000 billing and payment agents across the BEDC franchise states. I do not understand why any customer will pay cash to any staff when we have advertised over and over again that people should not pay cash to any staff. BEDC does not collect cash; if you have to vend or pay bills, there are agents for that purpose.
“If you pay cash to any staff and you do not have evidence of payment, it will not appear in your bill when we come for enumeration. If it does not appear, it means you have not paid and you will pay that money again. So, it does not make sense to pay money to anybody and not collect receipts,” Ajagbawa said.
The MD added that staff were only permitted to carry Point-of-Sale (POS) machines to do such transactions electronically when the company goes out on cash drive.
