Call to stop illegal connections

Business

By PETER ESILA
About 33 per cent of power connections in Port Moresby are illegal, says PNG Power acting managing director Carolyn Blacklock.
She said this during the leaders’ summit in Port Moresby last week.
Blacklock made an impassioned plea to the community to help stop “this terrible disease” because it is costing the company millions of kina. “Right now in Port Moresby, one in three households, one in three connections, is power that we sell for free,” she said.
“Every one per cent of that 33 per cent is lost revenue of K5.4 million to PNG Power.
“It is impossible to run a business if a third of your customers do not pay for what you are selling.
“We need your support.
“We need to make sure that we get hold of this terrible disease about illegal connections and get rid of it.”
Meanwhile, Blacklock said from 2019 to 2030, there would be increased coverage, lower unit cost of production, financial sustainability, smart meters, customer satisfaction, reliability and six million people connected to the grid.
She said the significant achievement last year was when PNG Power focused on its national obligations.
It supported Government in achieving significant outcomes and tackled core operational issues.
“The number of outages reduced in 2018 with continued supply to Government, despite increasing arrears,” Blacklock said.
“There was no bailout, no Government concessions, we operated within BSP overdraft facility and no tariff increase.
“Improved reliability of supply of power facilitated the return of industrial customers that were previously lost, primarily Harmony Gold, and K913 million in revenues – highest ever.”
Blacklock said the PNG electrification partnership would support the country’s objectives of 70 per cent electrification by 2030.

One thought on “Call to stop illegal connections

  • Since PNG power is the monoploly, it’s employees see this as an opportunity to charge extra fees (buai-sumuk moni) outside of the application payment agreement before they move in to make installations. I have witnessed massive amount of money in hundreds to thousands given by urban/rural customers as bribery to keep the installation going till completion. Some customers in rural areas even go to the extent of making mumu with pig or lambflaps and beer cartons put together with cash for the very employess to carry in with any new service installations. With that as an extra expense illegal connections started booming because other customers wanted to apply for power but see that extra expense is not in their best interest so they just combine as a group, apply for power and then they all feed from the one service installed.

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