The Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission has increased the price for electricity meter from N67,055 to N82,855.19, also the value of single-phase meter has been marked up from N36,991 to N44.896.16. Power consumers will start paying more for prepaid meters.
NERC Chairman, James Momoh said the rational on the increase of price in meter cost was due to the foreign exchange rate by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Momoh signed the new prices pursuant to section 19 (d) of the meter Asset providers regulation. However the initiation of the MAP model, according to stakeholders, they have not adequately addressed the meter demands of the consumers.
Momoh said “In arriving at the approved unit costs, the commission has considered the recent changes in foreign exchange approved by the CBN and the applicable rate available to importers of meter components or fully assembled meters through investors and exporters’ forex window.”
Consumers have again and again criticised the inability of the regulatory commission and power distributors to supply the prepaid meters since the sector was privatised in November 2013. Meanwhile the power distributors had subtly handed over the task of providing meter Asset providers established by NERC.
Statistics from the commission reveal that out of a total of 8,310,408 registered active electricity customers, at most 3,704,302(44,6 percent) had been metered. This shows that 55.4 percent of end-user customers were still on estimated billing.
