23.73 million homes don’t have electricity – NERC committee

A total of 23.73 million households, out of the 28.9 million in the country, do not have access to the national electricity grid, the Committee on Public Inquiry on Metering in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry has said.

This means that 82.1 per cent of Nigerian households do not have access to electricity from the national grid.

The committee, set up by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, and chaired by a lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, said at the presentation of its report on Wednesday that the country require about N50bn to provide meters for all electricity consumers.

It also disclosed that out of the 2.89 million meters available in the country, 701,385 were faulty.

This means that 22 per cent of all meters installed in the country are faulty in spite of the fact that until recently, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria had been charging all electricity consumers the Meter Maintenance Fee.

The committee also found that the electricity distribution companies carved out from PHCN had not yet accounted for the N2.9bn released to them as subsidy for meters under the first phase of the Multi-Year-Tariff-Order.

Findings by the committee also confirmed that PHCN workers preferred charging customers by estimation in order to make room for over-billing.

Aturu said, “The total number of customers captured in the records of operators of the Nigerian electricity supply industry is 5,172,979. This represents 18.65 per cent of Nigeria’s total households put at 28,900,492 as provided by records of the National Bureau of Statistics.

“This, however, does not include those enjoying electricity illegally, who are not registered by the Discos (distribution companies), known as illegal consumers. Out of the number of customers registered, 2,893,701 or 55.94 per cent are metered, while 2,355,045 or 45.53 per cent are un-metered. The committee, however, discovered that out of the total number of customers metered, about 701,385 or 22 per cent of the meters are faulty.”

The committee chairman further said, “Thus, at present, a total of 2,956,069 or 54.83 per cent of all the customers registered are neither metered at all nor have functional meters. On the average, therefore, only about 2,434,541 or a minute 8.42 per cent of the total households in Nigeria are currently being billed correctly by all the Discos, if a household is used as our metering index.

“The remaining registered customers are, therefore, at the mercy of estimated billing. This development has created a wide gap in effective billing, which calls for emergency response.”

Aturu said the committee observed in the course of its inquiry that the Discos had meters in stock but failed or refused to supply and install them, even when many customers had paid for them.

It was further established that the chief executives of the distribution companies were responsible for the inefficiency and unaccountability that permeate the system.

Aturu said, “It was discovered that in most of the Discos even though meters were in stock, customers exist who had paid for years and yet were not supplied any. This was confirmed when customers presented receipts of payment upon the declaration of some of the CEOs of their readiness to metre within a week those customers with evidence of payment. With this revelation, it shows that meters were not as scarce as the CEOs widely alleged.

“Sharp practices and inefficiencies are the hallmarks of the metering of the system, from ageing power plants and terrible transmission lines to more importantly, rampant corruption and poor collection rates.

“Customers were of the view that with the poor supply of electricity in the country and gross inefficiency in the supply of electricity on the part of the Discos to curtail operational losses, estimated billing remains the only option for the Discos.”

Responding, the Chairman, NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, said metering was at the heart of customer service and current reforms in the industry, insisting that it must be addressed for efficient service delivery.

He said, “Metering touches the heart of customer service. The real crisis in the electricity industry is not technical but governance. If the metering gap is so huge, then customers will continue to pay higher.

“We want metering in the industry to be completed within 18 to 24 months. If it is not done, there is no guarantee that the reforms will work. We will ensure that every fund provided for metering is used for the purpose.”

Amadi said NERC would demand that the Discos should submit their metering plans and would follow up to ensure that they were fully implemented.