Following plans by the Federal Government to review power tariffs, power consumers nationwide may start to pay more for electricity.
This came on Wednesday as the Federal Government said it had begun the procurement of four million meters meant to be allocated freely to unmetered power users nationwide.
It was learned on Wednesday, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) would review the country’s power tariffs by next month, preventing any unforeseen circumstance.
The Deputy General Manager, Consumer Affairs, NERC, Shittu Shuaibu, described the four million free meters being procured, as phase one of the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP), which had commenced.
Shuaibu said, “The program is supposed to run in three phases which include phase zero, phase one, and phase two. Phase zero was rounded up around the end of October. Phase one has commenced and it is another government intervention of about four million meters.
“So far we have deployed about 860,000 or close to 900,000 meters, which were part of the one million meters that was procured as part of government intervention. For the four million meters, the procurement process has commenced.”
He explained that the mass metering intervention was not free as such because the government was giving out loans for the provision of these meters to Nigerians.
Shuaibu said power distribution companies would be part of the loans and were to refund it over a period of 10 years at a very reasonable rate through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
