Zamboanga City- Following the intensified campaign of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative, Inc. against alleged pilferers of electricity, a total of 1031 apprehensions were conducted by the Energy Recovery Team (ERT) of the Cooperative in 2022.
Reports showed that most of the alleged pilferers used altered meters, direct tapping, and other modes of illegal connections that contributed to the system loss.
ZAMCELCO General Manager, Engr. Gannymede Tiu explained that electricity theft can oftentimes lead to electrical accidents and brownouts that can affect everyone in the community.
“We need to continuously intensify our fight against these pilferers in the next coming days to also protect the rights of our honest consumers from the burden of paying the cost of pilferage passed on to them.” Engr. Tiu added.
Electric Service Providers such as Zamcelco are afforded multiple remedies to protect themselves from electricity pilferage.
Under Republic Act 7832 or the “Anti-electricity and Electric Transmission Lines/Materials Pilferage Act of 1994”, aside from the immediate disconnection of electric service after due notice, a distribution utility can impose on an erring customer a fine ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 and subject the customer to imprisonment.
Chief Management Officer, Atty. Rommel S. Agan explained that the Cooperative is also entitled under the Magna Carta for Residential Electricity Consumers to recover a differential billing for illegal consumption of electricity up to a maximum of sixty (60) billing months up to the month of discovery.
“In fact, we were able to collect as much as 1.4 million pesos from a particular consumer who was found to be liable under the law.” Agan said.
With the number of apprehensions, ZAMCELCO was able to recover 17, 453, 994-kilowatt hour. More than 59 million pesos were also collected from these apprehensions.
Agan and Tiu urge the public to report any violation of RA 7832 or the Anti Pilferage to ZAMCELCO.
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