We are committed to ensuring safe power supply – NEMSA

The Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) has reiterated its commitment to the effective and efficient discharge of its statutory mandate to ensure Nigerians have safe power supply and usage

NEMSA said contrary to media reports, the agency has distinct responsibilities from those of other government agencies including the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON).

The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating overlapping functions of government agencies at a hearing in Abuja last week alleged that NEMSA was responsible for the weak metering system by electricity distribution companies in the power sector.

In statement issued by its public affairs department at the weekend in Abuja, the agency said its management under the leadership of Aliyu Tahir, the managing director/ceo, is working round the clock to ensure that Nigerians have efficient, safe and reliable power supply services by ensuring that materials and equipments are of high quality.

Established by NEMSA Act, 2015, the agency is charged with the responsibility to carry out the functions of enforcement of technical standards and regulations, technical inspection, testing and certification of all categories of electrical installations, electricity meters and instruments.

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This is with the aim to ensuring an efficient production and delivery of safe, reliable and sustainable electivity power supply and guarantee safety of lives and property in the Nigerian electricity supply industry (NESI) and other allied industries/workplaces and premises

“NEMSA strives to ensure zero incidences of electrical accidents, energy accountability, eliminate sub-standard equipment and materials and rid the system of quack electrical personnel,” it said.

One of the strategies to realise the vision, the statement further added is through effective service delivery by “consistently applying our corporate culture defined by a simple set of corporate values of quality service and safety, honesty and integrity as well as leadership and collaboration.”

“For the avoidance of doubt, NEMSA’s 2015 act empowers it to ensure enforcement of standards and regulations. These standards are developed by the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) while the technical regulations are developed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and our mandate is to enforce these standards and regulations.

“We carry out these through a number of activities, one of which is inspection and testing of all categories of electrical equipments and installations.

“When we go out on inspection we make sure that all the requirements are complied with before we can issue a certification for that equipment to be installed for use in the country. Through that process we enforce the standards and regulations. We also carry out regular monitoring of existing networks.

“In clear terms therefore, our activities are divided into five areas. First is the new electrical installations that are coming in, before they are put into use we carry out all the inspections and certifications through which we enforce standards and regulations.

“The second step is the existing networks which we carry out monitoring and evaluation to ensure continuous fitness of the networks and if we notice any defect we ask for corrections and we ensure the corrections are made. And where we notice substandard materials we ask the vendors to remove and replace them.

“We also carry out the certification of electrical installation personnel- that is the personnel responsible for executing electrical installations across the country through the certification we ensure that they are qualified and competent and that they understand the regulations and standards with regards to their duties. We also ensure that they regularly update their knowledge of the industry while we monitor their performance.

“The next area of our mandate is the testing and certification of the materials and equipments used in electrical works. We have our meter testing laboratories across the country where we carry out the testing of meters before they are installed in homes and public places.

“We inspect transformers; assemblers and manufacturers as well as cable manufacturers across the country and through that means we ensure that these equipments and materials are tested and certified before they are deployed for use in the country.

“We have successfully updated our quality management system (ISO 9001) certification for year 2022. Also, we have successfully started the certification process for ISO 17024 which has to do with the accreditation of our laboratories to ensure that our services are recognized globally and accepted. That is ongoing.

“We have also inaugurated a taskforce on monitoring of the performance of existing networks across the country. Basically, the mandate of the taskforce is to look at the challenges between transmission and distribution, because we noticed that there is a wide gap between the two and it’s not helping our country”, the statement further read.