I have been a firsthand witness of the suffering of many people who have applied to have prepaid meters deployed to their apartments without success over the last one year. I cannot imagine any reason that can account for such a delay.

Some people have fallen victims of IKEDC officials that demand for money in order to help speed-up the process but, these have often proved to fail as well.

Despite the cries of many people, IKEDC has not paid enough attention to the plight of these people. There have been several promises to deploy these meters but days have turned to weeks and months and at the end a promise is just a promise.

I propose that IKEDC and other DISCOs be subjected to a law that compels them to connect customers and install prepaid meters for them within 2 weeks of a customer's application. Failure to do this, the DISCO should be compelled to provide electricity to the concerned customers for free, until such a time that the DISCO deploys the prepaid meter.

This, I believe, will bring about efficiency on the part of the DISCOs and thus ensure fair billing to their customers and simultaneous block another channel of exploitation by unscrupulous staff of the DISCOs.