4 Millions Electricity Consumers in Nigeria Have no Meters

At least four million Nigerians have yet to get prepaid electricity consumption reading metres, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has said.

Dr Anthony Aka, the Acting Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NERC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Uyo on Saturday that unavailability of company manufacturing the device was hindering maximum provision of metres.

“You have to order them, you have to configured them and protect the system, you have to deploy the technical expertise to ensure that these meters are not bye pass but as we speak today, these meters are being bye passed,’’ he said.

He said that the commission would sanction Electricity Distribution Company, which does not comply with directives to distribute prepaid meters.

“It is our responsibility to ensure compliance.

“We have our team monitoring them and we want to make sure that if they do not deploy the number of metres per month, per quarter or per year, we are going to sanction them.

“Customers that do not have electricity metres and who feel that they gave him a wrongful billing in a month that he did not incur has the right to reject that bill.’’

He advised customers through a formal petition for investigation and find out whether the billings were fairly done.

“If it was fairly done, then you will have to pay that bill and if it was not fairly done, then distribution company in no way, will disconnect you,’’ he said.

Aka said that customer should be provided with meter within 60 days of payment.

“If they do not provide you with meter, electricity distribution company have no right to give you estimated bill,’’ he said.

Aka, however, decried a situation where PHEDC workers were attacked by customers, saying that such act was unacceptable.

“They are doing their legitimate job, and for them to be killed, harmed or interrupted in the course of doing their legitimate jobs, you are not contributing to help solve the problems of electricity in the country,’’ he said.

He said the company was committed to ensure that consumers were not exploited.

According to Aka, electricity distribution is private sector driven, and the government only provides regulatory framework and enabling environment.

He noted that fixed charges in electricity billing do not exist again as it had been recalibrated as part of energy charged.

“If there is no electricity, distribution company don’t have right to charge customers.

“We as a regulator listen to Nigerians, we remove the fixed charge and recalibrated it into the energy charge,’’ he said