RECENTLY, against wise counsel from the Green Chamber, the Federal Government announced an increase in the prices of single-phase and three-phase prepaid electricity meters, and declared that the price changes would take effect from September 6. An order released by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) with the number NERC/2023/020 and jointly signed by the commission’s Chairman, Sanusi Garba, and its Commissioner, Legal, Licencing and Compliance, Dafe Akpeneye, stated that a single-phase meter would now cost N81,975.16k from the previous price of N58,661.69k, while the price of a three-phase meter was raised to N143,836.10k from the previous N109,684.36k. This move, it claimed, was to ensure fair and reasonable pricing of meters to both Meter Asset Providers (MAPs) and end-user customers, adding that the price hike would ensure MAP’s ability to recover reasonable costs associated with meter procurement and maintenance, while ensuring that their pricing structure allowed for viable returns on investment. It claimed to be interested in evaluating “the affordability of meter services for consumers” and preventing excessive pricing that could burden end users, as well as ensuring that “MAPs are able to provide meters to end-use customers in the prevailing economic realities.”
In November 2021 when it carried out a similar exercise, it had raised the price of a single-phase meter from N44,896.17 to N58,661.69, and the price of a three-phase meter from N82,855.19 to N109,684.36 in a circular addressed to the leadership of electricity distribution companies and meter asset providers. Apparently in a bid to douse the outrage expressed by Nigerians, it told them that it had commenced the procurement of four million meters meant to be distributed free of charge to the estimated eight million unmetered power users nationwide. At the time, the Deputy General Manager, Consumer Affairs, NERC, Shittu Shuaibu, claimed that the MAPs, working with the distribution companies (DisCos), had been able to deploy about 860,000 meters under phase zero of the mass metering programme. The programme, he added, was scheduled to run in three phases. Naturally, the latest moves is being contested by power consumers who are wondering why the Federal Government has continued to hike the cost of various commodities in Nigeria’s energy sector.
In previous editorials, we had characterised most of the regulatory agencies in the country as captured regulators. We hinged our position on the fact that rather than protecting the interests of Nigerians, they had often made a case for the agencies they were supposed to regulate, leaving the masses in the lurch. In the present case, it is quite distressing that the agency of government that promised to provide prepaid meters free of charge to consumers has not only abdicated that responsibility that it imposed on itself but has also gone ahead to increase the prices of those meters. Nigerians have been scratching their heads over the fact that the meters are not their property, yet they have to pay through the nose for them.
The latest increases are indeed unbecoming, coming at a time when the government has been squeezing Nigerians. If the motor vehicle insurance fee is not being tripled, Nigerians are being asked to pay separately for the certificate of ownership, a document previously renewed with other vehicle papers. In announcing an upward review of the prices of electricity meters after jettisoning the earlier indication of yet another increase in electricity tariff which it said was suspended, the government alluded to the need for further consultations with stakeholders before addressing the issue. We do not know whether it has now consulted with the fabled stakeholders, or who exactly they are. Were they consulted before the increase in the prices of meters, considering that the effect is still about imposing more burdens on electricity consumers in the country?
Nigerians are currently groveling under immense and unbearable cost of living occasioned by peremptory government policies without well-thought-out implementation strategies, making life essentially unlivable for most of them, and there is absolutely no need for the imposition of additional costs on them except the intent is to snuff out life from them. It is certainly difficult to understand why a government would give the impression that it is simply out to oppress the citizenry. How exactly does it want the people to add the increasing cost of electricity meters to living costs when they are already unable to make ends meet ? And to believe that these are electricity meters that are in theory not to be owned or become their property! How are they supposed to pay increased costs for electricity meters that will remain the property of the DisCos?
With the latest increase, it seems that the government is just out to fleece and impose unconscionable burdens on the people, which we find insensitive and callous. It should urgently seek to make life less miserable for Nigerians by addressing the cost of living problems, rather than adding to them for no just cause. That is the only way to show that it is cognizant of its responsibility to attend to the welfare of the people.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then