TURN OUT THE LIGHTS

It was inevitable that this would happen - On the back of sweeping changes to disconnection procedures after the untimely death of Folole Muliaga, half the bloody reprobates around the country have tried to claim " medical need " to stop being disconnected from their power supply for unpaid bills.

We are really angry about this. If power companies are having to spend thousands on establishing medical need and then on top of that, not getting paid for power people are using, then that means that people who pay their power bills like us, end up paying more.

We are paying for the loafers and the down right fraudsters sucking off a system made loose by an over reaction. The sick part of this is those in genuine need have probably had to wait to be declared medically dependent on power while all the leeches are weeded out of the system.

Mercury Energy has approved just 1500 claims by customers wanting to be registered as medically dependent, out of 10,000 applications.

Energy retailers had only now sorted through most claims, Mercury general manager James Munro told the newspaper.

"The entire industry has had to work through a big bulge to get down to those who are genuinely medically dependent."

The Electricity Commission, which introduced voluntary guidelines to protect the vulnerable, is considering how to tighten up the system to stop people taking advantage of retailers while still protecting at-risk customers.

So we say all power to the Electricity Commission to sort this mess out and quick bloody smart.