Why is NERC paying to find out if consumers want meters?

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is requesting for bids from competent and eligible firms for the conduct of a fast-track survey on consumers’ willingness to pay for meters in Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). Problem is, consumers are already paying exorbitant cost for meters that aren’t even available.

According to an advertorial published on the Commission’s website, the request for Expression of Interest (EOI) was due to “concerns regarding the cost of meters and customers’ willingness to pay for them. Therefore, the Commission is desirous of engaging a firm with proven experience in data polling, and survey activities to conduct a survey to determine customers’ willingness to pay for different classes of meters.”

Paying for meters is not a new phenomenon in the NESI. while announcing the introduction of the Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation (CAPMI), a model that allows electricity consumers self-finance their meter acquisition and installation due to Discos’ inability to promptly meter their customers, in 2015, customers were already paying for meters.

“It is regrettable that customers paid for meters and not supplied with same months even years after. This is a double jeopardy considering that meters ought to have been supplied to them free once they paid bills. We are working on measures to ensure that customers who paid before January 2011 are metered within the shortest possible time,” said Sam Amadi, NERC’s chairman in 2015.

Two years later, the Commission accused the DisCos of abusing the process and in a letter sent to DisCos in September 2017, it abolished the scheme. Between November 2013 and June 2016, only about 500,000 meters were deployed by the 11 Discos within their networks with less than 35 per cent of that directly done by the Discos said NERC.

Many consumers lost their money as they were placed on endless waiting list by the DisCos with many who paid failing to get meters. Even letters written by NERC to DisCos to fulfill their obligation under CAPMI were largely ignored.

In August 2017, Babatunde Fashola, minister of Power, Works and Housing directed that electricity customers could negotiate with DisCos while also reiterating that the DisCos are obligated to meter their customers, stirring confusion.
“Some Discos have come back to say that their customers still want to pay for meters and they can reach agreements with them on how to pay for it.  Government will not stand in the way of such an agreement. It is consistent with the intent of privatization envisioned by The Electric Power Sector Reform ACT (EPSRA) or at least it does not violate the Act,” said Fashola at the 18th Power Sector operators meeting with the minister held in Kano that month.

So if consumers have been paying for meters, whether single-faced or three phased meters, for the past seven years, it seems silly to organize a survey to waste public funds to find out what everyone already knows. Nigerian electricity consumers have been inflicted with arbitrary estimated electricity billing by predatory DisCos and require no persuasion to pay for their own meters. Yet NERC is wasting public funds to learn what is already obvious.

According to the Commission, the survey follows its approval by the regulation on meter asset providers with a view to scaling up the rate of metering by the electricity distribution companies, thereby reducing incidence of estimated billings as well as guarantee revenue in Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).

The scope of the service according to NERC will include a web-based survey comprising interviews of households, small businesses, schools and hospitals to determine how much they pay for electricity as opposed to how much they think they ought to be paying.

“In addition, the scope shall also include the following: Willingness to pay for one-phase and three-phase meters based on an internal estimate arrived at by the Commission; Acceptability/attractiveness of payment in installments for pre-paid meters,” the notice reads.

NERC will conduct this pointless survey in selected cities spread across six geo-political zones with the breakdown of the number of interviewees required for the survey.