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Power: Local firms to provide one million meters

By BusinessNews Staff on February 4, 2015

Indigenous manufacturers of electricity meters will provide one million units of the product for power consumers across the country, the Federal Government has said.

The government had announced on January 15, 2015 that it would procure one million meters to bridge the huge metering gap in the country and eradicate estimated bills issued by the power distribution companies to their customers.

“As a result of the burden on the Discos due to meter issues, the President has provided funding to give over one million meters to Nigerians to reduce the gap and then allow the Discos ensure that all customers are given meters,” the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, told consumers and civil society organisations during a town hall meeting in Abuja.

Nebo, in a statement from the Federal Ministry of Power on Monday, announced that the one million meters would be procured from local manufacturers in order to encourage the producers.

He further explained that the over N300bn Central Bank of Nigeria intervention fund in the power sector was a soft loan arising from the synergy with stakeholders, including the ministries of Petroleum Resources, Power and Finance.

The fund, Nebo said, was aimed at infusing liquidity into the electricity market so that customers would not be over-taxed, and would help to offset debts owed to gas suppliers.

On the new gas tariff, the minister insisted that this was the first time a cost reflective tariff that would assist all actors to recoup their investments had been put in place to encourage gas suppliers, while end users of gas would be assured of supply.

The minister said the Federal Government would redouble its efforts through synergy with security agencies like the Navy, National Security Adviser’s Office, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Police and the Army, as well as use digital systems to curb the menace of gas pipeline vandalism.

According to him, Nigeria now has a workable policy on renewable energy and energy efficiency, adding that the policy was at its final stage and would ensure the electrification of large population of citizens living in the rural areas.

“Through solar-powered energy sources, rural communities that are so far flung that it will take two decades to get them connected to the national grid will get electricity, because with privatisation, they will be classified as non-viable by investors,” Nebo added.

[Punch]

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