Electricity distribution companies have been spotted obliging users to purchase LED lamps before installing their prepaid electricity meters. Daily News Egypt has witnessed the obligatory selling of LED lamps to citizens before they paid the fees for their meters.
Informed sources told Daily News Egypt that the main reason for this move was due to the availability of large amounts of LED lambs at the companies’ stores. The South Cairo Electricity Distribution company has been selling LED lamps on installments added to electricity bills.
The sources explained that citizens who have applied for prepaid electricity meters must pay the indexation and installment fees and then purchase 10 LED lamps in order to install the meters.
According to the contracting conditions signed by citizens to install electricity meters, there is no item or article concerning purchasing LED lamps, however, it was ordered as part of the fees to install the meters. The price of the LED lamp sold by the South Cairo Electricity Distribution Company stood at EGP 25-32.
The sources said that many quarrels have occurred between citizens and the specialised employees. The issue usually ends by reducing the number of lamps that citizens must purchase.
According to the Ministry of Electricity, the number of lamps existing in the electricity distribution companies’ stores reached 13m lambs. About 11.8m were distributed on installments added to the consumption bills or bought directly.
The Ministry of Electricity has started selling LED lamps in 2015 to participate in rationalising consumption. It has put forward a strategy to install 13m LED lamps as well as 2.6m lamp posts to reduce consumption by 12%.
