- Govt should not succumb to undue pressure from electricity firms
Once again, Nigerians are confronted with the question of which comes first: the egg or the chicken, with the report that electricity consumers might soon have to pay more. Going by the report, the consumers may have to part with between N2.89 and N7.45 more per kilowatt hour (kwh) anytime from now. According to the report, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which is in charge of electricity tariff, has completed receipt of complaints on the new tariff after the expiration of a 30-day window. The review, according to reports, is necessitated by current economic realities. The proposed tariff however has to receive the blessing of the government before its implementation.
As we have always argued, we have nothing against tariff increase per se. After all, the power sector is not immune from the country’s economic vagaries, the exchange rate and all. Our disagreement however has to do with the issue of prepaid meters which the electricity distribution companies are reluctant to give their customers, for obvious reasons. Yet, it was clear a long time ago that one of the most contentious issues in the electricity sector is that of appropriate billing of customers.
Indeed, many Nigerians had expected that this would be sorted out as soon as the new investors took over. Unfortunately, more than three years down the line, the issue has persisted even as the arbitrary billing by the electricity distribution companies is being resisted by more Nigerians. We wonder why Nigerians make a fetish of nearly everything. In neighbouring Ghana, prepaid meters are found all over the cities and even in the remotest parts of the country. How come the meters have to become something we would be debating for more than three years?
In our view, the Federal Government should have reviewed the contracts with the electricity firms a long time ago. They had shown early in the day that the challenges in the sector were beyond their ken. The ideal is for Nigerians to have constant supply of electricity but it amounts to double jeopardy for them not to have electricity and yet be made to pay for what they never used.
The complaint of lack of funds by the distribution companies to buy prepaid meters would appear laughable given that the power sector was among the various companies, individuals and parastatals that donated N21.27 billion during a fund raising dinner organised by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on December 20, 2014 in Abuja. Indeed, the power sector alone coughed up a whopping N5billion, in what former information minister Jerry Gana said was the contribution by his friends and associates in the power sector, to the campaign. This huge amount would have gone a long way in procuring many prepaid meters for electricity consumers at the relatively lower exchange rate at that time. How can companies that embarked on that subversive generosity now turn round to complain of lack of funds to run their operations? The donation to the Jonathan campaign was made public; who knows how many other such avoidable expenses the companies have incurred which they now want Nigerians to pay for through crazy bills?
Much as we do not support the Federal Government turning itself into a Father Christmas for the electricity firms, we would readily support any reasonable assistance it could render to them if it is convinced they genuinely require such. For instance, the government should expedite action on the more than three million prepaid meters that it promised would soon be rolled out under its intervention programme.
We are not happy that the distribution companies have continued to demonstrate a lack of capacity to tackle their problems. Rather than concentrate on service delivery, they have kept emphasizing increase in tariff as if that would automatically translate into improved power supply. It would be sad for the government to allow tariff increase without evidence of their seriousness to bill Nigerians only for electricity consumed. Firms in the power sector won’t have any motivation to be efficient if they can always slam bills indiscriminately on their haples customers.
