Daniel lives in the Federal Capital Territory, and last year he paid between N5000 to N7000 monthly for electricity, however, as the year wound down his monthly electricity bill increased to N10,200. He told Dataphyte that sometimes, he pays as much as N11,000 monthly, a billing that is irrespective of the availability of electricity or otherwise.
“Whether I use electricity or not, the bill remains the same, there is usually no change,” he told Dataphyte.
Daniel is not alone, another respondent told Dataphyte that he pays a regular amount that does not change irrespective of availability of electricity or not.
“In my house, the bill hovers around N11,250 per month and this is whether we have electricity or not” Samuel revealed to Dataphyte.
Fixed billing negates the provisions of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, which reads in part, “The quantity of electricity consumed, location of the consumer determines how much to be paid for electricity”.
The billing model of the NERC considers four classes of electricity consumers; residential, commercial, industrial, special, and street lights.
Prepaid metres that are designed to ensure consumers only pay for the electricity they have used is yet to reach all Nigerians. Nigeria had planned that by 2020, all homes in the country will be metered, but according to NERC data, this is yet to happen.
The world bank had said in a report that six in every ten registered electricity consumers in Nigeria are unmetered.
Data from the NERC portal shows that for example, as of March 2019 only 53% of electricity consumers in Abuja have been metered, leaving 47% unmetered.
DISCOs claim that a National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) ‘distributed One million metres free in the earlier phase 0, which was officially launched in December 2020 and ended in October 2021. Another four million metres is expected to be delivered in phase 1, with commencement scheduled for the first quarter of 2022 ‘.
Consumers who are yet to benefit from the national mass metering scheme could get their metres through another scheme called the “Metre Asset Provider Scheme”. Whereas NMMP scheme gives out free metres, under MAPS consumers who are unwilling to wait for free metres and are able, can pay to get theirs .
A statement by the NERC also corroborates that anyone who will benefit from metering under the Metre Assets Providers Scheme will pay for it.
The cost of obtaining these metres may account for why many Nigerian homes do not have one. Documents seen by Dataphyte show that it costs about N63,061 to get a single-phase metre while a three-phase metre costs N117,910.69. The cost of getting a metre is twice the country’s minimum wage .
Officials of distribution companies who spoke to Dataphyte noted that the issues with metering are not the fault of the DISCOs. According to them, DISCOs do not produce metres, they only supervise roll out, and the companies who produce the metres produce at a cost which is reflected in the price charged for them.
With the NMMP, Nigerians will endure a longer wait to get free metres, as the government’s project is expected to last for a five year period that started in November 2020 and is currently in the second phase. There have been reports that in the first phase of the NMMP governments owed debts to contractors who supply the prepaid metres, which it has failed to pay. Access to forex for importation, access to finance for local manufacturers are some of the other issues that have been highlighted with the free metering scheme.
DISCOs have also been accused of failing in their duty of making metres available to Nigerians, which forces people who can afford to, to pay the high costs for metres. Even with this, there are several reports of payments made without consumers receiving the metres.
With Nigerians at the mercy of estimated billing, made worse by epileptic power supply issues, distribution of four million free metres to Nigerians may help the country bridge the gap of unmetered households and solve the problem of estimated billing. However, it is entirely plausible that MAPS, the scheme that guarantees payments to DISCOs and manufacturers could be favoured by the supply side and this can potentially impact the efficacy of the free metering scheme.