Fed Govt takes delivery of 500, 000 smart meters

· Don’t pay for installation, Minister tells Nigerians

The federal government yesterday took delivery of about 500,000 smart meters as a further decisive step towards ending the metering gap across the country. The meters, coming under the World Bank funded Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), is supporting the government to import a total of about 3.4 million meters in two batches.

The first batch consists of 1.43 million meters, out of which about a million meters has been received. Currently, almost 150,000 meters have already been installed across customers, across all distribution companies in the four corners of the country.

The delivery yesterday is also an initiative to further compliment the Presidential Metering Initiative (PMI), which has a target of procuring about 10 million meters over the next five years, at an average of two million meters in a year.

Expectedly, with the synergy between the DISREP, the PMI, the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) and the MAP will translate into the desired result of completely eliminating the seven million current metering gap in the country.

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, while inspecting and taking delivery of the imported meters at the APM Terminal, Apapa, was emphatic that the meters are to be installed free of charge.

“I also want to mention that it is also unprecedented that these meters are to be installed and distributed to consumers free of charge, free of charge! Nobody should collect money from any consumer. It is an illegality. Is an offence for the officials of Distribution Companies (DisCos) across Nigeria to request for a dime before installation, even the indirect installers cannot ask the consumers for a dime. It has to be installed free of charge, so that Billings and collections will improve for the sector,” Adelabu warned.

According to the Minister, with the delivery, the journey of completely eliminating the meter gap in the Nigerian power sector has just begun. He expressed optimism that in a couple of years from now, every household, business, institution, industry, will be fully metered, to ensure that billing and revenue collections in the power sector will become more transparent, very fair and will be very just, including improving the readiness of electricity consumers to pay their bills.

Highlighting the benefits of adequate metering of consumers, Adelabu contended that it will lead to improved liquidity in the sector.

“When you have improved liquidity in the sector, the sectoral revenue will be able to pay a higher percentage of the energy cost in the industry, which will eventually lead to improvement in efficiency, improvement in effectiveness of operations, and we will be able to achieve the much awaited stability, reliability and functionality of electric supply to our household, our businesses, our institutions and to our industries.

“This will aid and accelerate our economic growth and industrial development, it will also improve the prosperity of our people, create more jobs, more productivity and revenues will be on the increase and ultimately, improve the standard of living of our people, while unemployment rates will be on the increase,” the Minister explained.

He further revealed that yesterday’s milestone represented the first time in the country will be simultaneously importing and buying locally this volume of meters- all to ensure that the power sector is completely transformed.

The Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Ayo Gbeleyi, assured that a new order prescribing the protocol and the processes that DisCos must follow in order to ensure that consumers have an unhindered access to meter installations and also that will address the concern that DisCos are delaying meter installations will soon be released by the Nigerian electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

“We have our dashboard, we have our trackers and all stakeholders’ hands on deck to ensure seamless and rapid deployment of these meters. The meters you are seeing here are actually manufactured to the specific requirement of each DisCo. They are also inscribed on the meter; there’s also an anti-theft protocol embedded in it. The configuration is to a particular DisCo, so you can’t take a meter configured for Eko DisCo and go and install it in Ibadan,” Gbeleyi said.

In similar vein, the Chairman, Mojec, Mojisola Abdul, explained that the meters supplied by the Federal government is to genuinely generate more revenue for the country to be able to supply more power.

“Physically, we have installed almost close to 150,000 meters and they are free. Don’t give anybody money. You are not allowed. We had meeting Wednesday with the minister, and as well as the DG BPE about the further progress of how to make it easy for every Nigerians. And we are going to call it mobile registration of meter free. That means you register today, under three days, your meter is installed,” She said.

Clarifying the delay in meter installations after months of application and payments made, the minister said: “In the past, we have never seen this volume of meter availability. So it was possible then that there was a rationalisation of the few that you have on the ground, and at that time you are also required to pay for it. But this one is from two perspectives. Number one, the volume is there. We have received over almost one million and more are still coming in the first phase.

“In the second phase, another 1.55 million meters are coming. And again, it has to be installed free of charge for the consumers, so the issue of the complications you have expressed in the past would be completely eliminated. What you are seeing today is not the first set of deliveries; we’ve been receiving this in the past couple of months and they have been taken to their various destination in the discord territories, and we have installed almost 150, 000 meters,” Adelabu concluded.