Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU), the state owned electric power distribution agency in Ethiopia, is set to launch a new utility bill collection system for its corporate clients.
The new payment system allows corporate clients to use a bank to pay their bills. The agency agreed with the state owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, to collect bills for EEU.
Sheferaw Tellila CEO of the EEU and Dereje Dufa vice president of CBE signed the agreement last Monday at the EEU headquarters.
The agency is set to sign the agreement with its corporate clients.
Currently EEU has around 27,000 corporate high voltage electricity consuming clients. That includes private, governmental and non-governmental organizations.
There are seven different types of tariffs for each usage. The lowest is 0.2 birr for each kilowatt-hour (kWh) for those that use below 50kWh a month, and the highest is 2.4 birr for each kilowatt-hour for those that use more than 500kWh a month.
The new electricity tariffs became effective on December 1, 2018, five years after that study. The rates will rise progressively toward a four-fold increase in 2022.
Consumers who use less than 50kWh a month are the only ones that will not see a rise, while the rest will be charged at a higher price based on higher rates.
The national electric utility recently adjusted the rates after 13 years of hiatus. This followed a perennial shortfall in revenues as a result of electric subsidies.
The new system is aimed at ending the time and energy the clients used to spend to pay their bills. Currently, electric and telephone bills are being collected at Lehulu payment centers in major cities across the country.
Lehulu is pioneered by Kifiya Financial Technologies, a private company established by a private-public-partnership with the former Ethiopian Ministry of Information Technology that was responsible for collecting bills through various branches.
The largest consumers of electricity, which the utility classifies as those that use more than 500KWh a month, will see their tariffs grow by more than fourfold to 2.48 Br per KW in four years.
“The Agency also has a plan to incorporate other consumers into a similar system to ease the payment channel,” Shewaferaw Tellila, CEO of EEU said.