By Uche Mbah, with Agency reports
President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the commencement of a nationwide mass-metering program as part of efforts to end estimated and arbitrary billing for electricity.
Nigerians have been reeling under arbitrary billing system that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Agencies tagged estimated billing, where customers are billed by the authorities based on estimates of what he/she may have consumed. This does not take into consideration the actual usage. It has given rise to alleged racketeering within the staff of the agency.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), James Momoh, in a statement on Wednesday, in Abuja, said the president’s directive was in response to the yearnings of Nigerians.
According to him, the president also approved a waiver of the import levy on meters, so that those that do not have meters can be supplied as early as possible at reasonable costs.
Momoh urged the public and all stakeholders in the power the sector to disregard any reports of an arbitrary tariff increase affecting Nigerians.
He said measures are in place to protect the poor and vulnerable in cases of tariff reviews.
The Chairman explained that tariff reviews would only follow service-based principles.
“Under these service-based principles Distribution Companies (DISCOs) will only be able to review tariff rates for customers when they consult with customers, commit to increasing the number of hours of supply per day and quality of service.
“In all cases, poor and vulnerable Nigerians will not experience any increase; in line with these expectations, DISCOs are directed to engage with their customers on a Service-Based Tariff structure.
“Under the Service-Based Tariff Structure, DISCOs can only review tariffs for customers under the following conditions:
“Customers are consulted and communicated a guaranteed level of electricity service by the DISCOs based on hours of supply
“No estimated billing through the strict enforcement of the capping regulation; this means that unmetered customers will not experience any cost increase beyond what is chargeable to metered customers in the same area,” he said.
