Ikeja Electric Plc, on Wednesday, said increased costs of procurement of meters have slowed the implementation of its planned programme of metering all electricity consumers under its network.
The head of Corporate Communications, Mr. Felix Ofulue, said that the prevailing economic difficulties in the country has decelerated the substantial progress the company had already attained on metering.
Speaking with journalists in Lagos, Ofulue stated that the cost of procuring electric meters has jumped about four times since last year.
He said the effect of the increased cost was affecting the company’s operations adversely.
“Sustaining the pace of meter roll-out will be at the expense of a number of other activities on the network”, Ofulue said.
Despite the challenges, the company said metering of customers was still ongoing at Ikeja GRA.
Speaking further, he said his company was eager to provide metres for all its customers because it would cut down operational costs substantially, including cost of revenue collection.
He assured customers yet to be reached in the company’s metering project that they would soon be served.
Ofulue said that over 5,000 maximum demand customers within its network have been metered in compliance with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s directive.
The commission had directed this class of commercial and industrial consumers of high volumes of electricity not yet provided with metres to stop paying estimated bills.
He added that the company was presently working out arrangements with some metre-producing companies in Nigeria in order to step up progress on metering.
He assured of the quality standard of such metres, saying the companies import the completely knocked down parts from reputable sources and assemble them locally.
On estimated bills, Ofulue said the company has taken steps to reduce the margin of error on consumption estimates by metering all electricity feeders.
This, he said, implied that the bill per transformer is no longer estimated. The balance of power consumed after netting off pre-paid customers is shared among non-metered consumers.
He said that this has brought the bill very close to actual consumption.
On outstanding debts owed by customers, the Ikeja Electric spokesman estimated the figure at N88 billion.
Though some of the debts are disputable, he said the effort made in reducing the margin of error in billing has paved a way forward for both the company and the consumers.
The company’s new policy of insisting on full payment for current bills is expected to prevent further bills from accumulating, he added.
