The Minister of Power, Mr Babatunde Fashola, last week announced plans to liberalise the acquisition of meters by customers for the 11 electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to check complaints of overbilling.
The announcement, though greeted with ovation from some quarters, caused other customer groups and operators of power assets to call for a fair and transparent move in the intervention process planned by government.
At the monthly power sector meeting held in Kano on August 14, 2017, Mr Fashola said government in the past, under the defunct PHCN, attempted to intervene in metering customers by introducing the Credited Advanced Payment for Metering Initiative (CAPMI).
He said CAPMI was wound up in 2016 “because of the distrust and disaffection it was creating between consumers and DisCos with government caught in the middle, with numerous petitions by customers who paid for meters that were not delivered within the approved time or at all.”
He announced the new plan of the DisCos reaching agreement with their customers and supplying meters. “Some DisCos have come back to say that their customers still want to pay for meters and they can reach agreement with them on how to pay for it,” Fashola disclosed.
Although he said government is supporting that, for customers to start paying for meters, the minister said the Discos have the obligation to meter customers in their utilities.
He said the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) will make regulations that will guide meter service providers, meter and retail franchise operators, community aggregation services for electricity sale and meter provision and low cost meter supply.
Once this is done, Fashola said the terms of licensing and the roll out of the metering programme will begin.
The Daily Trust analysis of the pronouncement shows that this same scheme is similar to CAPMI. The CAPMI which Fashola wound up in 2016 was a regulation of NERC in 2012 during the privatisation process.
The new plan, just like CAPMI, may allow customers to buy meters from DisCos or use it on a lease basis. Either way, the CAPMI methodology plays out when customers pay N24,000 for a single phase meter and about N54,000 for a three-phase meter.
Checks show, however that unlike CAPMI when meters were delayed for those who paid, there seems to be more meters available if this new plan works out as Fashola said government has approved the injection of N39 billion loan to contractors for meters. (Daily Trust)
