TheCable

Senate President Ahmad Lawan says consumers should be properly metered before the increase in electricity tariff.

On Monday, the national assembly convinced the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to halt the proposed increase in tariff for power consumers.

In January, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had announced that there would be an upward review of electricity tariff across the country from April 1.

However, in March, it directed DisCos to suspend the proposed tariff increase due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sale Mamman, minister of power, later said the proposed hike will take effect from July 1.

Speaking on Tuesday after a visit of the leadership of the national assembly to the presidential villa, Lawan said President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo have agreed on the deferment of electricity tariff hike.

The senate president noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people negatively and the situation requires that everything possible is done to make life easy for the citizens.

“The joint leadership of the National Assembly sat yesterday (Monday) with DisCos and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission ( NERC). We believe that this is not the right time to increase the tariff in the electricity sector. Nigerians have a lot of challenges today because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation requires that we do everything possible to make life easy for our citizens,” Lawan said.

“Of course, the government is doing a lot in this respect but we believe that DisCos should meet with consumers, find better cost-effective tariff. But before then, there must be some steps to ensure that the consumers are properly metered, otherwise, you will still go back to guessing what consumers are consuming. That is to say, that let the billing be scientifically based, it has to be based on what you actually consumed.

“So, we had this discussion with Mr. Vice President and we are sure that that announcement in the increase of electricity tariff in Nigeria is untimely. We believe that we need to do more work to ensure that before any increase, there must be some measures, steps, line of actions that must be exhausted including the metering. This is a welcome idea to the Vice-President as well.

“I believe that the share purchase agreement signed by the government and the DisCos at the point of the privatisation must be adhered to. These are businesses and they must do everything possible to provide services. It is when they provide efficient and effective services to consumers that they can make money.

“So, we cannot continue to give DisCos and GenCos the resources that we can ordinarily deploy to build hospitals. But whatever is necessary for us to do as part of our agreement with them, we must do those.”

According to NERC’s latest report, only 3.9 million of the registered 10.3 million subscribers in the country have prepaid meters.