Electricity tariff: Stakeholders continue opposition in Nigeria
.As DisCos prepare to charge a new tariff
Stakeholders in Nigeria’s power sector have continued to mount pressure against high tariff already approved by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC.
The spokesman, House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Kalu blamed the Executive for the recent upward review, said: “We took a resolution based on the cries, the hunger, the yearning of Nigerians. We have not reversed ourselves.
We passed the ball in the court of the executive. So, it is left for them to obey the resolution. We didn’t act alone. We passed the resolution based on the wishes of the people. They should be blamed. Not us. Do your investigative journalism and know why the executive went ahead. For us, we have done our job which is to do the wishes of the Nigerian people on the electricity tariffs.”
Similarly, a member of Presidential Ad-hoc Committee on Review of Electricity Tariff in Nigeria, Kunle Kola Olubiyo, said: “In a situation where NERC has convincingly demonstrated the lack of monitoring and evaluation and there is a bad culture of lack of the willingness to yield and lack values for simple moral tenets attached to the enforceability of contracts. The post Privatization era had mindlessly reduced Electricity Consumers to sectoral experimental Guinea pigs.
“In all of these, the National Power Grid is manifestly weak with obsolete infrastructure. Technically speaking their Grid capacity limitations at the transmission and distribution were inherited from NEPA / PHCN. A lot of communities have been rendered hopeless because they are not getting power supply because they are classified as not being economically and commercially viable.
The Investors entered into service level agreements. They promised to provide free Pre-Paid Meters, metering which in any case was meant to enhanced energy accountability, energy conservation, cost Recovery, and of course returns on Investment.
Consumers don’t buy meters for petrol stations as measuring devices to measure the quantity of petrol, they simply pay for products, consumers don’t buy measuring devices for groceries to buy meat, they only pay for products but why the power customers must buy meters to use electricity. To us there is glaring conspicuously pronounced conspiracy theories.”
The President, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Ayuba Wabba, had said: “This is not only condemnable, but there is element of deceit in it because there is a standing committee of the Federal Government which the NERC, is part of, still working on how to address the issue arising from the last electricity tariff hike which Labour intervened.
Most of the committee members are not even aware of this current increase. Basically, we are going to resist it and Nigerians must also stand up to resist it. It is like exploitation and it means that this exploitation will not have an end.
When you look at the variables, it is even laughable. You are looking at the variable of inflation and the variable of the exchange rate which are supposed to be the responsibility of the government to fix. The government ought to fix our economy and bring the exchange rate to the lowest level, same with inflation. Government is transferring its inefficiency to the consumers which the accompanying inflation will be very severe.”
