Consumers Lament As Electricity Meter Prices Rise

The cost of a single-phase electricity meter has risen to over N130,000 from N88,000 in the first quarter of this year.

This is the second time the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission would approve an increase in the prices of prepaid meters.

Sunday PUNCH gathered that the price of a single-phase meter ranged from N130,000 to N139,000, while a three-phase meter was sold between N219,000 and N229,000, depending on the vendor.

This is just as some consumers who have yet to be metered continued to lament high estimated billing from their Electricity Distribution Companies.

The consumers on direct connection lamented that they receive estimated billings every month, stating that the amount being charged by DisCos is not usually commensurable to the units of energy they used.

A single-phase smart meter was sold at N106,802.69 while the three-phase smart meter rose from N154,600 in May this year to goes for N210,751.61.

According to some of the electricity distribution companies who spoke to our correspondent, DisCos no longer have control over meter sales, stating that the customers deal directly with the meter asset provider, who is mandated to supply the meter within 10 working days after payment.

The Chief Executive Officer of Femadec Group, Fola Akinola, recently said meter application portals were shut in April because the vendors and the DisCos were regularising prices to reflect the current economic realities.

“In a situation where you fixed the price of meters when $1 was around N500, and now that $1 is over N1,300, you cannot sell the ones you have because you will not be able to replace them. People cannot bring in meters because of the exchange rate,” he stated.

Consumers kick

In an interview with our correspondent on Saturday, the Executive Director of the Electricity Consumers Protection and Advocacy Centre, Princewill Okorie, wondered why NERC would approve another meter price increase at a time the consumers are still struggling with the Band A tariff hike.

According to Okorie, Discos, aided by NERC, have been extorting Nigerians by failing to abide by the MAP policy which stipulated that consumers should get energy credit as a refund for meters paid for.

“The MAP scheme policy says that if a consumer pays for a meter, he should get a refund through energy credit. How many consumers have been paid back?

“Why will this sector be only about collecting money from the consumers without service delivery, transparency and accountability? This is because nobody punishes or monitors the Discos. It still boils down to the consumer aspect of the sector not being taken seriously.

The consumer rights activist disclosed that during the 2022 tariff hike, NERC had approved for DisCos that for every bill a consumer pays, a certain percentage should be for the Meter Acquisition Fund.

In June this year, the Federal Government approved N21bn under the Presidential Metering Initiative to provide meters to unmetered customers at no cost.

Consumers are asking how the N21bn Mater Acquisition Funds allocated to the DisCos were spent.

NERC spokesman, Usman Arabi, could not be reached at the time of filing this report.

An official of the commission who spoke on anonymity told our correspondent that customers are not to pay for meters under this initiative.

Asked if this would not amount to discriminating against those who have been paying for meters for all these years, the NERC official retorted, “Those people are supposed to be refunded by the DisCos through energy credit and the commission is following up on the compliance.”

Another source told our correspondent that the MAF meters are for Band A customers only.

“The Phase 1 MAF meters will be given to Band A customers for free. It will eventually go round to other customer classes”, said the source.

However, our correspondent observed that the metering gap is still as high as seven million of the 13 million electricity customers.

The Executive Director of Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, Sunday Oduntan, told our correspondent that the meter policy has changed, saying DisCos no longer have control over meter sales.

Meanwhile, some customers of electricity distribution companies in the southwestern part of Nigeria have lamented the amount being given to them by the Eko Electricity Distribution Company and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company.

The consumers who complained to Sunday PUNCH said the monthly bills were choking and unpayable.

An EKEDC customer, Christina Monyeh, said she had been receiving a ‘crazy bill’ from EKED since July 11, 2023, when the company charged her N394,286.03.

She said, “The crazy billing started in July when we were billed N394,286.03, it increased to N650,285.04 in December 2023 and it went on like that. To our surprise, they brought a bill of N1,134,129.05 in January, N1,350,727.55 in February and N746,945,00 in July.

“We had prepaid meter which we usually load between N40,000 and N60,000 electricity units on it. But in June 2023, some officials of the EKEDC came to the house and said the meter was stagnant; I don’t know what that means. They placed us on direct since then.

“We applied for meter in January 2024, but the meter was not given to us. In May this year, the EKEDC claimed that the address we supplied was not correct. I suspect they didn’t want to give the meter to us because of the crazy billing”, she stated.

A customer of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company in Osogbo, Ismail Kolapo, lamented that his house received N700,000 electricity bill from the company.

He said, “IBEDC’s bill is choking and unpayable because I don’t know why they would give us N700,000 bill for when we didn’t have a cold room.

“Around February this year, we approached one of the marketers of the IBEDC for prepaid meter. We paid N80,000 for one face meter and an additional N10,000 as consultation fee. A week later, we were told IBEDC had closed the portal for meter procurement.”

But the Head of Media Relations of the IBEDC, Busolami Tunwase, said the company had no control over the price of meter.

She said, “No customer is billed arbitrarily. There’s something we call capping policy for those who do not have a meter, it is an accountability mechanism put in place to ensure that customers are not billed arbitrarily beyond their cumulative usage. The policy is to ensure that no customer is cheated.”

Reacting, the General Manager, Corporate Communications and Strategy of EKED, Babatunde Lasaki, also said none of the customers of the distribution company are charged indiscriminately.

“Note that access to pre-paid meters cannot be denied to any customer under any circumstances,” he stated.

Source:- Punchng