Nigeria dithers on electricity theft law with dire consequences

Since May when Abubakar Malami, Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General approved a special task force for the investigation and prosecution of electricity theft cases under the Electric Power Sector Reform Act, 2005, it is yet to gain much traction. The task force which was inaugurated by Mohammed Umar, the director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, during a joint conference organised by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company and the DPP’s office at the Federal Ministry of Justice was touted to eradicate the practice.

Members of the task force were drawn from the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and the DPP’s office, and were charged to commence work immediately by arresting and prosecuting electricity thieves across the country. Months later, the DISCOs are calling for increasing the prescribed fine of N50,000 to N200,000. This solution looks like a band-aid, a tad too insufficient. A BusinessDay investigation last year revealed that Nigeria’s electricity distribution companies lose over N174billion yearly to people who bypass meters and steal electricity and this is increasingly making it difficult for them to pay staff, run offices and repair or replace broken electricity infrastructure.

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Port Harcourt DISCO is the worst affected where electricity consumers steal N30billion worth of electricity yearly. Enugu and Ikeja DISCO follow with yearly loss of about N24billion with Enugu DISCO reporting that about 70 per cent of their meters are bypassed. Fraudulent individuals have devised nifty methods of tampering with electricity meters. Some insert needle pins into holes in the meter box slowing down the recording wheel, give a flash reading or even zero usage. Small magnets have also been reportedly attached outside the meter casing which will stop the meter from registering or slow it down. Meters are sometimes bypassed and power is sourced illegally from underground cables and overhead wires.

In the middle of the night, artisans like welders hang their wires on power conductors and rig the connections to use power without paying. Common in largely populated areas in Lagos are houses where though only a connection is visibly from the meter to electric poles, several other connections are attached some concealed inside the walls. The DISCOs merely pass the cost to customers without meters in crazy billings. However relevant regulation on the practice is still a draft regulation but the Miscellaneous Offences Act (MOA) contain provisions that impose penalties ranging from life imprisonment to 21 years in jail for theft and vandalisation of power assets.

“However, the regulatory instrument which would give stronger credence to the weight of the offence of electricity theft has not been given the force of law to augment the existing laws currently available at the disposal of the courts,” avers Ivie Ehanmo, an energy lawyer.

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While the Electricity Theft and Other Related Offences Regulations, formulated by NERC in 2013 is yet to become a law, the Lagos state government is advancing its own law on the practice, which is in line with the proposed NERC law. This is making it imperative for a federal law to criminalise the practice.

The current draft law provides that any person who wilfully and unlawfully taps, tampers with a meter, installs or uses a tampered meter, receives electricity supply by by-passing a meter, or uses any other device or method which results in diversion in a manner whereby electricity is stolen or wasted, damages or destroys an electric meter, or causes or allows any of them to be so damaged or destroyed as to interfere with the proper or accurate metering of electricity, to abstract or consume electricity or knowingly use or receive the direct benefit of electric service through any of the acts mentioned in the regulation or uses electricity for the purpose other than for which the usage of electricity was authorised, so as to abstract or consume or use electricity shall be guilty of an offence under Sections 383 and 400 of the Criminal Code, Sections 286(2) of the Penal Code and Section 1 of the Regulation.

The offences are punishable with terms of imprisonment as applicable under Sections 390 of the Criminal Code, Section 287 of the Penal Code or with imprisonment for a term of three years under the regulation or with fine or with both fine and imprisonment.

ISAAC ANYAOGU