Both commercial and residential customers of the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) are angry after receiving this past week their monthly electricity bills. Customers claim rates have increased by as much as 100 percent without any warning.
"Every month the electricity bill is usually the same, ranging from SR 200 to SR 250. This month, I received a bill for SR 1,992. I’ve had to resort to unplugging the fridge and other appliances overnight, to save money," Saeed Al-Otaibi, a convenience store owner in Jeddah, told Arab News.
Hassan Seraj owns a restaurant. He’s taking similar measures to reduce electricity consumption.
"We are storing dough and batter for our popular Ramadan dishes in a smaller fridge that we recently bought instead of using the large heavy-duty fridges and freezers we used before," he said, adding his monthly bill increased from SR 370 to SR 1,056.
Not only have the tempers of commercial customers been heating up but residential customers are feeling the heat too.
"It’s difficult when you receive a high electric bill on top of increased food prices and other goods. How will people live?" wondered Omer Mohammed, a 72-year-old retired government employee who lives on pension. His electric bill jumped from SR 1,100 to SR 2,000 this month.
He said he was surprised to receive such a high bill, as he had not heard any announcements about an SEC rate increase.
Arab News spoke to a source at SEC who denied any recent rate increase. "To my knowledge there has been no rate increase for commercial or residential customers over the past few months," he said.
He added one reason for high electricity bills might be higher summer temperatures. "Customers are using more electricity than they realize, which increases their overall bill.”
He claims SEC has not raised prices since July 2010 when it implemented new rates approved by the Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority.
Rate increases were imposed on industrial, commercial and government customers to increase revenue by SR 853 million and help finance SR 300 billion in projects necessary to meet the rising electricity demand.
