The Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, Mohamed Shaker, held a meeting with the heads of distribution companies to monitor performance rates, collection rates, and discuss complaints concerning erroneous readings that cause the increase in the value of the consumption bill.

Sources in the Ministry of Electricity informed Daily News Egypt that the Minister of Electricity confirmed that employees who issue wrong bills or manipulate values based on estimated false consumption will be punished, which recently happened in the North Cairo’s Electricity Distribution Company.

The sources pointed out that the company responsible for meter reading did not implement its commitment and a large number of clients complained as the employees did not take the readings for more than two months, even though they live within the same districts they work in.

The step of contracting with a civil company to read the meters came to overcome the deficit in the number of collection and readings workers, as there are only 3,981 readers and 7,272 collectors, according to previous remarks by the minister.

The Egyptian Electricity Holding Company (EEHC) contracted a private company to read meters in two sectors per each distribution company in the republic. However, the high value of bills in the last two months based on false readings indicated a problem.

The sources pointed out that the EEHC has started to implement the pre-paid meter plan to eliminate all problems, errors, and false readings, where the meter is topped up before using and consumers can follow their consumption and ration it themselves.

A large number of citizens complained about the increase in the electricity bill during the past two months, stressing that they did not see the employees responsible for taking meter readings.

The EEHC will conduct a shuffle in the distribution and electricity production company heads within days, which aims to improve the services provided to clients.