Lower House to convene special session on winter electricity bills next week

AMMAN — The Lower House will convene a special session next Sunday to discuss the "controversial" December and January electricity bills.

The Lower Chamber made this decision during a session headed by Speaker Atef Tarawneh on Tuesday.

A number of citizens have voiced complaints concerning electricity price hikes in household electricity bills for December and January.

The Lower House in February tasked a joint committee comprising members of the energy and finance committees with preparing a report on the recent complaints regarding electricity price hikes. The joint committee, in turn, assigned the Audit Bureau to examine the issue.

Prime Minister Omar Razzaz had directed all related bodies to fully cooperate with the parliamentary committee during the process. 

Considering the results of the Audit Bureau report, the joint committee on Sunday recommended that December and January electricity bills be recalculated according to the "normal" rates, calling on electricity companies to refund to customers any overpayments made, according to the recalculated bills.

The committee recommended that waste surcharges, which are usually added to electricity bills, not be linked to energy consumption. It also urged the electricity companies to take electricity meter readings during billing periods, install smart meters immediately and merge consumer categories.

The committee also called for developing a mechanism for submitting complaints on the Energy and Minerals Regulatory Commission's website.

The Audit Bureau attributed the price hikes to the move of subscribers from one consumer category to another, along with the addition of the "differences in fuel prices" item on electricity bills, and noted that no technical problems related to the tariff system were detected.

The report also revealed that the value of the overall “electricity loss” during November and December of 2019 and January of this year are "unjustified", as the increase in electricity loss ranged from 18 to 24 per cent.