‘Our obligations must be met’ — UCH, IBEDC trade words over electricity bill, power disconnection

The management of University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) have clashed over disconnection of power supply to the health institution.

IBEDC had disconnected the power supply to UCH over “technical faults and indebtedness”.

Jesse Otegbayo, UCH chief medical director (CMD), said IBEDC should stop giving the hospital industrial bills.

Otegbayo said the electricity distribution company should realise that UCH is a social service provider that should not be treated as a commercial outfit or a manufacturing company.

“The company should realise that we are rendering social services. Lots of people come here for treatment without having any money,” he said.

“Some even die after we have spent millions in treating them. At the end of the day, their relations will not be able to pay the outstanding bill.

“But because we are a government hospital, we have no choice than to release the corpse.

“So these are the things IBEDC should consider and not treat us as if we are a manufacturing company.

“We need them to reduce the tariff because they have been increasing it from time to time.

“We, as a hospital, cannot be increasing what we charge our patients; otherwise, an average Nigerian will not be able to reach us and pay.

“We are owing about four hundred and seventy something million, but about N200 million of it is owed by College Of Medicine, not UCH.

“But because UI’s College of medicine is within UCH, they lumped us together; whereas, we are separate agencies. While the college belongs to Federal Ministry of Education, UCH belong Federal Ministry of Health.

“We pay between N30 million and N45 million every month as electricity bill, but IBEDC gives us bills ranging from N45 million to N71 million.

“Whereas, we only receive N14 million for overhead per month from government, we supplement it with our internally generated revenue (IGR).”

Otegbayo said when he came on board as CMD in 2019, he met a debt of N300 million owed IBEDC, adding that efforts had since been made to pay.

‘OUR OBLIGATIONS MUST BE MET’

However, IBEDC in its reaction, said UCH’s debt to the company stands at over N400 million, spanning over six years.

Busolami Tunwase, the IBEDC spokesperson, said the company had made several efforts to get the money through several letters and meetings.

“We have met with them severally but there has not been any fruitful deliberation on how the debts will be repaid,” Tunwase said.

“As it is right now, discos are haemorrhaging, as the terrain in the power sector is getting tougher by the day.

“We have to make 100 percent remittances on our obligations to the market operators.

“If we don’t get in our outstanding debts, there is no way we can meet up with our own obligations, let alone serving the people better.”

Tunwase said UCH was not the only one disconnected, noting that other customers with outstanding debts were also affected.

“We need to get our money back in order to continue to be operational and survive as an entity,” she said.

“But, the management of IBEDC and UCH need to sort out how about N500 million debt will be paid.

“We are not denying the fact that there was a fault but we need to get them to sit down with us and find a way to pay the money.”