Economic dynamic, persuasion would deepen Meter Manufacturers market share’  

Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Housing and Works have identified dynamic of the economy and strategic persuasion, reasoning as steps meter manufacturers should embrace as they battle to gain market share in the power sector.

Fashola said this step would make the power sector more competitive in terms of pricing and also competitive in terms of quality for the local market.

While speaking after a facility tour of Mojec International, a leading meter manufacturing company in Lagos said that commercial transactions whether local or international companies cannot be done by compulsion.

“I think that commercial things should be done by persuasion, reason and the dynamics of the economy”, he said.

When the market is competitive in terms of pricing and quality, the Minister added that it will make more business sense to produce and patronise meters locally.

He expressed delight that there are Nigerian companies that can meet the metering demand in the country but wondered why there is still a huge meter gap in the power sector.

Chantelle Abdul, Managing Director, Mojec International, while commenting on the challenges of local meter manufacturers, said lack of finance to operate their factories and also being able to provide some kind of vendor financing to off-takers.

“One of our critical issues at the moment is lack of access to foreign exchange. A lot of our manufacturing inputs rely on goods abroad. As I mentioned during the minister visit is that my goal as a manufacturer is to produce much of my manufacturing input locally here in Nigeria so that we go as far as producing our chips and the PCB which is the brain of the meter and all other component that is required.

“There is nothing that stops us from producing the battery that we need, the capacitors that we need. It is sad to say that we don’t have factories that produced those things here in Nigeria,” Abdul said.

She hopes that meters manufacturers can get the support of the government both at Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN level and financing institutions to be able to produce these components here in Nigeria noting that they need forex to be able to do these things.

“We cannot afford to be borrowing at double digit rate, it will automatically increase the price of the meter,” she said.

KELECHI EWUZIE