Independent Energy explains billing blunder

NEWS Electricity company, Independent Energy, has written to 30,000 business and residential customers to reassure them its recent billing troubles are being cleared up. The company announced in February that 40 per cent of its 259,000 customers have received bills that are either incorrect or late. The problem, explained John Sulley, CEO of Independent Energy, is that regional electricity suppliers are not providing the company with the correct meter information when customers switch supplier. Sulley added: "The information we receive from regional electricity companies is quite often wrong, or we receive multiple versions of the information, all of which are different. Now we have put much better validation procedures in place." Independent Energy expects to have the backlog of late bills cleared by the end of June.