Electricity supply: Group wants eligible customers’ regulation approved

Association for Public Policy Analysis,  a civil society group has appealed to the Federal Government to implement the “Eligible Customer Regulation” to ensure constant electricity supply.

Mr Princewill Okorie, National President, Association for Public Policy Analysis made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.

NAN reports that the Eligible Customer regulation permits  Electricity  Generation Companies (GenCos) to sell electricity direct to Customers” whose consumption is more than two megawatts/hour  over the course of one month.

The customer must be connected to a metered 11 or 33 Kilo Volt delivery point on the distribution network.

According to Okorie, if power is made available for all, consumers’ eligible customers’ regulation needs to be approved.

”Under Babatunde Fashola as Minister of Power, eligible customer regulation was approved and this entails that those that use more than two megawatts of electricity can buy power direct from the generation companies-, ” he said.

Okorie said that the quantity of energy generated by power generation companies needs to be wheeled to consumers.

He said that in a situation where Gencos generate 12,000 megawatts and what is distributed is only 3,000 megawatts how many households will that get to.

According to him, there  is the need for entrepreneurs to have power to run their businesses so they dont have to rely on fuel and diesel.

”In most shopping plazas, you find a lot of generators working at the same time.

” If the management of such plazas are given opportunity to buy power direct from the Gencos, power will be enough for people to operate their businesses.

”So government has to look into the issue of eligible customers, so that Gencos will not be losing money when they generate power and electricity will be available to all,” he said.

Speaking on estimated billing, Okorie said that it would continue, adding that not all consumers could buy single phase or the two phase meter.

He said that the  Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had estimated billing methodology.

According to him, this entails that before giving estimated bill, the  Distribution Companies (DisCos) will check the meter on the transformer serving that area.

”So, if they remove the losses, they will share the money to the consumers in that area, the households.

“But what happening now  is that the DisCos sit in their offices and write any amount and give people to pay as estimation.

”People without meters  are paying, even this period that there has not been light. if they refused to pay they are disconnected and this is injustice being done to consumers,” he said.

According to Okorie, the DisCos are deliberately doing this,  he regulator should look into the issue to see how it can be resolved.(NAN)