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Tenants decry forceful billing by landlords
- Say they do not have a choice in the matter
- The landlords insist on pay or leave to intimidate tenants
In the capital city of Douala, tenants have decried the illegal billing for electricity usage by their tenants. According to some tenants in the Littoral region, the landlords have resulted to direct billing of their tenants.
The tenants are not allowed to see the actual bills from the Electricity Company of Cameroun (ENEO) either and when they insist on seeing the bills, they are asked to leave the property.
A tenant, Rosa Essomba, alleges not to have seen a copy of her electricity bill from ENEO for over two years. She says her Landlord presents her with a bill every month. “The moment my landlord saw me bringing in a refrigerator in the house my monthly bill moved from CFA 3000 to CFA 4000. When I tried to find out why he told me that if I don’t want to pay I should leave his house” she said.
According to the tenants, the Landlords calculate the bills based on the number of appliances in the tenants’ homes. There has been no comment from ENEO on the illegal practices by the Landlords.