The Director General of the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Prof. Oladapo Obafunwa, says the agency could soon be thrown into total darkness following high electricity billing and disconnection threat by the Eko Electricity Distribution Company.

He spoke Saturday during a hybrid media chat by the agency.

” Because of this so-called Band-A , Eko Electric gave us a bill of almost N49 million for the month of August, N48 million for the month of September, and N44 million in October. I don’t know what we are consuming. We have had to shut down the residential quarters. In the residences, power is shut down at 9 a.m. and restored at about 4 p.m.”

He said there was research going on in NIMR, with temperature sensitive equipment and reagents as well as samples.

While saying that the reagents and equipment were often provided by foreign donors, he stated that he had tried several times to explain to the authorities of Eko Electricity that “we can’t afford to shut down NIMR”.

He said, “We have had to depend to a large extent on foreign donors to assist us. But it’s like some people don’t seem to get it.

“They don’t seem to understand the importance of research within the society. I tried several times to explain the fact that we are not a tertiary health facility generating income from patients. Even if you have to go to the neuropsychiatric hospital, you’ll pay. We are not that kind of facility. We are not a tertiary educational institution. We don’t have the number of students that you have, whether it’s University of Lagos, or Lagos State University, or whatever, that pays school fees.”

He explained that despite being a research institute, and having no meter, the agency continues to get estimated bills.

He said, “And when we approach them, that, ‘look, let us have a meter so we can check what you are billing us for,’ they refused. Two different officials told me, ‘forget it, we won’t give you’. The meter for NIMR is supposedly located at their Jibowu office or somewhere.
“And I said, you can’t put a meter in your backyard and be giving us figures. We have written several letters. I mean several letters to Eko Electricity, stating this abnormal situation. We have copied the legal form for NIMR. We have copied the National Electricity Regulation Commission. (NERC) And we have now gone as far as trying to fix and install a meter here. We want to be able to cross-check what they are giving us. ”

The NIMR DG said the only time that the bill went down was in October and November when they got N34 million, adding that after that, it went up again.

“They give us an average bill of N44 to N45 million. And the moment they realized that we were going to install a meter, the bill that came for April jumped to N52 million. Despite the fact that we have been having a lot of power outages,” he added.

He explained that a letter he sent to NERC in Abuja was ignored.

He said, “They have not responded to that letter. And just yesterday, management decided, okay, you know what? While we are trying to, because there was a backlog that I inherited, which we have agreed we’ll be paying in installments over six months, and made two payments.

“When you add the third installment of the backlog, which we are going to pay about N6.7 million to it, you add VAT, about N3.8 or N3.9 million, everything comes to about over N63 million, just for the month of April.And we decided, that we will pay 50% of that N52m. We’ll pay the N6.7 million, the third installment which we had negotiated for. And we’ll pay 50% of the VAT. Everything will then fall down to almost N35 million.”

He highlighted that the agency could not afford to operate without power, noting that so many things would go wrong.

He stated that it was worrisome that the electricity company went ahead to send a disconnection notice to NIMR. after all efforts.

“It is frustrating. I cannot understand why some people somewhere just feel they should feed fat on NIMR. I still can’t believe that some individuals don’t care about the healthcare delivery system. They are giving us bills on the average of about N45 to N48 million every month,” he added.

The issue of high electricity tariff has generated huge controversy in the country. Recently, the presidency approved N10 billion for solar project, while lamenting the huge cost of electricity.