Prepaid meters: NERC 13% mass distribution performance shocks Senate

The Senate has expressed disappointment over reported poor performance of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission on Mass Metering Project in the country put at 13 per cent.

Already a sum of N33.4 billion was said to have been released by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the project, which has only recorded about 13 per cent implementation.

The Senator Gabriel Suswam-led Senate Committee on Power, gave the poor performance verdict on NERC on Thursday, sequel to assessment made on the project at an interactive session with the commission’s officials and representatives of the various electricity distribution companies at the Senate. NERC Chairman, Sanusi Garba, said the project which targets one million metering of houses  across the country between October 2020 and April 2021, had only recorded 13 per cent implementation as of 19th of March 2021.

He said, “While. N403,000 out of the targeted one million meters, have been delivered to the various DISCOs, only 127, 000 have been installed , representing 13 per cent performance.”

Garba attributed the poor performance to delay in disbursement of funds.

He said, “Target performance duration for the project, which is phase one, entailing metering of one million houses across the country in reducing the metering deficit of 6.5 million, is six months, that is from October 2020 to April 2021. “Though out of the N59.2 billion earmarked for it, N33.4 billion has been released to the various DISCOs by the Central Bank of Nigeria but disbursement of the releases were very slow which resulted in many of them, accessing the fund in February.

“This largely contributed to the poor performance percentage by the DISCOs for now, on the National Mass Metering project. “But with chunk of the funds available to the DISCOs now, the implementation performance index will rise astronomically within the next few weeks.”

Suswam noted that based on the poor performance recorded so far, the essence of intervention made by the Federal Government with the N59.2 billion loan might not be achieved.

He also said, “Your performance report on the Mass Metering Project is not impressive and encouraging at all.

“Nigerians are not happy that all efforts being made by the Federal Government to get electricity consumption metered are being thwarted in one way or the other. Estimated Billings is not acceptable and that is the reason why the intervention was made.”