00:02Raising six young children on a single income is hard enough.
00:06But when Jakana Energy failed to send Gemma a bill for almost 12 months,
00:11the financial strain reached a new level.
00:13I was checking the accounts. I was aware after a few months,
00:17I've not had an electricity bill.
00:19But it wasn't something that was in the forefront of my mind.
00:24I'd just moved house, I've got a lot of children, I work full-time.
00:27When the bill arrived, it was over $6,000.
00:31My jaw dropped. I thought, oh my gosh, how am I going to pay this?
00:35Gemma is among roughly 5,000 Jakana Energy customers
00:39caught up in a system failure that left people
00:42without electricity bills for months.
00:44In recent weeks, the ABC has heard from hundreds of customers
00:48hit with massive lump sum bills,
00:51some with large discrepancies in their power use.
00:54The NT's Integrity and Ethics Commissioner says his office
00:58is aware of the issues and has received a number of complaints.
01:02People like Katie, whose bills have varied significantly,
01:06ranging from around $300 a quarter to over $1,000.
01:11We'd actually had family staying with us for two weeks
01:15when we had the lower bill.
01:16And then we were away in the time that we had the really high one.
01:20And it just didn't make sense.
01:22Jakana Energy declined an interview request,
01:25but in a statement said the issue lay with Power and Water Corporation
01:28and the rollout of its smart meter system.
01:32PWC said during an upgrade last year,
01:34some smart meters were not recognised by the new system,
01:38which meant data was not automatically sent to retailers
01:42for them to issue bills.
01:43The company says it's made changes to the system
01:46and resolved all the cases.
01:48But for families still facing deaths and uncertainty,
01:52it's little consolation.
01:54You see the email come through and your heart drops a bit
01:57and you brace yourself for what you're going to open and find.
02:00With the NT government having just increased power prices by 5.3%,
02:06the bill shock isn't over yet.
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