By Obas Esiedesa/Abuja
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has issued a 14-day ultimatum to electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) that are in violation of its order to submit a list of all customers who paid for meters since January 2011, and begin metering them with immediate effect.
It would be recalled that in 2011, “a N2.9 billion metering intervention fund was made available to the companies with a view to closing the unacceptable metering gap. One year after, the companies made no appreciable progress, and this compelled NERC to demand for performance reports from the DISCOs.
“Eight of the 12 DISCOs submitted reports that fell far short of the requirements of NERC. The rest did not submit any report of how they spent the money”, NERC added.
A statement by the commission at the weekend warned that any DISCO that fails to comply with this new directive would be barred from collecting the new electricity tariff.
NERC in a letter dated July 19, to the DISCOs “expressed its utter dismay that all DISCOs have been in complete violation of the order as it relates to customers who have made payments within the given time frame, and have not been identified for immediate metering.
“NERC views this conduct as totally unresponsive, and undermining the effort of the reform,” Chairman of the commission, Dr. Sam Amadi stated.
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