Minority Caucus of the House of Representatives, Thursday, rejected the planned increase in electricity tarriff by the executive arm of government.
Leader of the Caucus, Mr Ndudi Elumelu, condemned the move and cautioned the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC and Ministry of Power to desist from the thoughts of raising the tariff.
The Minority Leader maintained that any increase in electricity tariff, will worsen the economy woes of the people and place a heavier financial burden on homes, personal businesses, companies and the overall productive sectors.
This came as a group, the All Electricity Consumers Protection Forum, faulted the plan to regulate estimated electricity bills issued by power distribution companies to their unmetered customers, billed to begin in February.
Elumelu in a statement, said “Nigerians are currently passing through grave economic stress and anything that would aggravate the situation, such as an increase in electricity tariff, is completely unacceptable.”
The Minority leader noted that electricity was pivotal to the economic and social lives of Nigerians and urged NERC to rather seek ways of making power affordable and available to Nigerians, in line with its establishment laws, instead of increase in tariff.
He assured that the Minority Caucus will continue to protect the interest of Nigerians in this regard by monitoring prevailing tariff on electricity as well as levies on other essential services in the country to ensure that Nigerians are not overburdened.
He also directed all members of the Minority Caucus in relevant committees to intensify their oversight functions in this direction in the interest of Nigerians.
Electricity consumer group faults NERC’s plan to cap estimated bills by DisCos
All Electricity Consumers Protection Forum in a statement by Its National Coordinator, Mr Adeola Samuel-Ilori, told NAN in Lagos that NERC was only pandering to the Discos with the proposal to the detriment of Nigerians.
It will be recalled that NERC Chairman, Prof. James Momoh, had on January 7, 2020, said once the regulation was released, unmetered customers would only pay what the commission compelled Discos to collect as estimated bills.
However, Samuel-Ilori noted that the regulation was not necessary because NERC should be focused on ensuring that all electricity consumers are metered within the shortest possible time.
He said electricity consumer groups had informed NERC when the regulator started mooting the idea in November 2018 that any form of estimated billing was exploitative and should be jettisoned by the Discos.
Samuel-Ilori said: “If the regulators are up to their tasks, should capping estimated billing be their priority? It clearly shows that they have been pampering the Discos, when they are supposed to ensure that all customers are metered.’’
According to him, until customers begin to get value for the electricity consumed, the power sector would remain comatose.
He said many customers had paid for meters under the Meter Assets Providers (MAPs) scheme for months but were yet to be metered by the Discos.
