End to 'NEPA's crazy bills in sight as Buhari stops estimations

Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) in Nigeria may now have to look for another way of doing business other than contracting out revenue gathering from customers to the third party and issuing crazy indefensible consumption bills to customers.

Discos will also have to stop the crude method of going from streets to streets with ladder to disconnect owing customers.

This is because President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered an end to estimated billing across the federation and has also directed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, to commence direct mass metering.

To this effect, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued a statement, stating that, “the President has directed that there should be a nationwide mass-metering programme in an effort by the Federal Government to put a stop to estimated and arbitrary billing for electricity. He has also approved a waiver of the import levy on meters, so that those that do not have meters can be supplied as early as possible at reasonable costs.”

The Commission also clarified in the statement that tariff reviews going forward will only follow service-based principles. The statement further reads, “In all cases, poor and vulnerable Nigerians will not experience any increase.

In line with these expectations, DISCOs are directed to engage with their customers on a Service Based Tariff structure. Under the Service Based Tariff Structure, DISCOs can only review tariffs for customers under the following conditions:

“1. Customers are consulted and communicated a guaranteed level of electricity service by the DISCOs based on hours of supply.
2. Customers are metered
3. No estimated billing through the strict enforcement of the capping regulation.

“This means that unmetered customers will not experience any cost increase beyond what is chargeable to metered customers in the same area. Even under the above conditions, there will be no change in tariff for the most vulnerable as tariffs for those consuming 50KW or less remain frozen. Customers receiving less than 12 hours of supply will also not experience any change in tariffs.

The Commission finally urged the general public and all stakeholders in the power sector to disregard any reports of an arbitrary tariff increase affecting Nigerians.