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NERC, SON sign agreement on safe, reliable electricity usage

By BusinessNews Staff on August 12, 2015

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has signed a fresh agreement with the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to ensure strict adherence to safety and reliability standards in the generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of electricity in Nigeria.

NERC and SON signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to ensure that electricity generation and usage in the country is done within the strict adherence to safety standards and zero or minimal accident rates.
By the terms of the MoU, which was signed in Abuja on behalf of NERC and SON by their respective heads – Dr. Sam Amadi and Dr. Joseph Odumodu, respectively, two organisations would collaborate to ensure compliance and enforcement of approved technical standards in the country’s electricity sector.

They are also expected to enforce government policies on standardisation of quality products, including sizes in the sector, and equally destroy substandard or defective goods that are found in the electricity market.
In addition, parties in the MoU also agreed to preserve and promote the enforcement of already existing standards established by the SON specifically for the power sector.

They thus agreed to set up a six-man committee with three members from each of the organisations to give effect to the objects of the MoU.

Shortly after signing on the documents, Amadi stated that the country’s public electricity systems were beginning to witness some good improvements which needed to be protected from unhealthy developments.

He explained that: “The law requires that we ensure electricity is safe, adequate and reliable. You cannot talk of reliability and safety without standard and SON is reputed for setting standard.”

“We have areas of collaboration beyond signing of this MoU which has been going on for some years now. This MoU is to build on that collaborative effort.

We have been experiencing increase in electricity supply lately and we only hope that the trend will continue. We do not want to see the downside of that increase, we therefore need to set safety and reliability standards,” Amadi noted.

Similarly, the Director General of SON, Odumodu in his remarks stated that usage of electricity in the country should always come with maximum adherence to safety and standards practices.

He noted that irrespective of the shortage in public electricity supply in the country, Nigeria, like the rest of the world would have to imbibe standard practices in electricity usage.

“Nigerians living in Nigeria should be safe as any other person living in any other part of the world. We are not there yet but we shall get there. We are beginning to see the benefits of standardisation in the electricity supply industry,” Odumodu said.

[ThisDay]

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