Electricity tariff: FG, labour adopt committee report

The Federal Government and Organised Labour have adopted the report of the Technical Committee on Electricity Tariff.

Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, made this known at the end of a bipartite meeting between both parties convened to review the reports of the Technical Committees on Electricity Tariff and Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

The minister said the Technical Committee on Electricity Tariff would be transmuted into a standing committee for the purpose of implementing the recommendations of the report.

“We adopted the report of the Electricity Committee, made some adjustments and transformed that technical committee into an implementation committee. They are now the standing committee to implement all the recommendations they gave to us here,” Ngige said.

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According to him, the recommendations include appropriate gas pricing for electricity generating companies (GENCOs) which, he said, would ultimately lead to price reduction of electricity per unit.

He also said the implementation committee would ensure effective mass metering of people by monitoring the distribution of meters, as there had been reports that the electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) had been hoarding the meters.

“This would effectively check the practice of irregular billing, like estimated billing, by the DISCOs,” he said.

Ngige added that the Committee would work to put a stop to forceful migration of consumers from the low-paying bands of D and E to the upper tariff bands of A and B by the DISCOs.

He warned that DISCOs that indulge in such practices would be sanctioned by Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and encouraged victims of such migration to petition the NERC.

NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, confirmed that the parties agreed that the matter of electricity tariff would be solved through appropriate gas pricing and mass metering.

On the template for fixing the price, Wabba said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) “should do everything possible to make sure the current template serves Nigerians instead of the market forces”.