THURSDAY- 18th November, 2021:
The Federal Government on Wednesday said it had commenced the procurement of four million meters meant to be distributed free of charge to unmetered power users nationwide.
It also disclosed it plans to carry out a review of power tariff plans, which will on the long run mean that Power consumers nationwide may start to pay more for electricity.
While it put the number of unmetered electricity consumers in Nigeria at about eight million, FG also added that over 860,000 meters were distributed for free to power users under phase zero of the National Mass Metering Programme.
It was learnt on Wednesday the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission would review the country’s power tariffs by next month, barring any unforeseen circumstance.
The Deputy General Manager, Consumer Affairs, NERC, Shittu Shuaibu, who disclosed this, also said that the four million free meters being procured is the phase one of the NMMP, which had commenced.
Shuaibu, disclosed to newsmen in Abuja, that the Meter Asset Providers, working with the distribution companies, had been able to deploy about 860,000 meters under phase zero of the mass metering programme.
He added, “The programme is supposed to run in three phases which include phase zero, phase one and phase two. Phase zero was rounded up around the end of October. Phase one has actually commenced and it is another government intervention of about four million meters.
“So far we have deployed about 860,000 or close to 900,000 meters, which were part of the one million meters that was procured as part of government intervention. For the four million meters, the procurement process has commenced.”
He explained that the mass metering intervention was not free as such because the government was giving out loans for the provision of these meters to Nigerians.
Shuaibu said power distribution companies would be part of the loans and were to refund it over a period of 10 years at a very reasonable rate through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
On plans for tariff review, the NERC in a notice on the review of transmission loss factor in Multi Year Tariff Order, informed the general public and industry stakeholders of the commission’s intention to commence two key reviews.
