Enugu — Chief Executive Officer of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) Enugu electricity distribution zone, Mr. Suleiman Yahaya, said at the weekend that debts owed it by the military, police in the South-east states as well as the five state governments in the zone is not less than N16 billion.

Alhaji Suleiman, who spoke during the launch of the EMS2000 post-paid scheme introduced to facilitate payment of bills and prevent loss of revenue, said the five state governments in the zone also owe the company about N1 billion.

"The five state governments in the South-east combined are owing us about N1 billion. Everybody that we are providing services for must pay; it is the law and everybody knows that. They also know that there are a lot of correspondences going on. The armed forces normally pay to our headquarters and they advise us to credit their account. This has not been happening for sometime now. So, we are appealing that all our debtors should see whatever they are owing us as a responsibility and pay. We have the records and we are having talks with the state government, but you know that it is difficult to collect money from the armed forces. We are working hard on that and hopefully they will yield to our pressure," he said.

Giving reasons for setting up the EMS200 electricity bill payment scheme, the PHCN CEO, said having realized that many people were finding it difficult to pay their bills owing to inconveniences, the company decided to create an easy access for paying such bills either through ATM, mobile phones, and other e-payment methods.

Also speaking, the Principal Manager, Information Technology, PHCN Enugu zone, Mr. Michael Ekpo, said under the new online real time billing and payment scheme, the old databases of AVR and Spectrum have been integrated into the EMS2000 database which is post-paid.