AEDC clarifies payment of prepaid meters by customers

By Bisola Adeyemo

Mr Bode Fadipe, General manager of Corporate Communications, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has clarified that electricity users only refund payment through energy token that are given to them at the point of purchasing energy.

Bode stated this in an interview with NatureNews following the current increment in price of prepaid meters.

“The historical trajectory of metering even before privatisation, you will notice that it has always been a mixed bag of free issue and payment for meter. This has been so right from the days of CAPMI. The issue of payment for meter is therefore not new to metering in the NESI.

“For instance when the Meter Asset Provider policy some 3yrs ago, the meter was paid for by customers while they got a refund through energy token that was given to them at the point of purchasing of energy. This is a re-enactment of that policy,” he added.

While explaining other factors attributed to it, Fadipe said “micro & macro economic factors such as Forex, inflation are complicit in the present circumstance.”

According to Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), this is in the context of recent changes in macroeconomic parameters affecting the cost of production.

In a statement made available by NERC in Abuja on Monday seen by NAN also reiterated that electricity customers do not paid directly under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) for the meters issued to them.

The statement partly reads “We wish to reiterate that the NMMP designed to provide all consumers of electricity with meters is a policy intervention of the Federal Government supported by the Central Bank (CBN) concessionary loans to Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos).

“This laudable initiative is still very much on course as a total of over 900,000 units of meters have so far been installed under the takeoff scheme without any payment by benefiting consumers.

“While this doesn’t cover many of the unmetered customers, we are pleased to inform electricity consumers that the next phase under which about four million units of meters would be procured from local meter manufacturers has commenced,” He said.

“Pending the conclusion of the NMMP, procurement processes and the commencement of manufacturing and installation, consumers may elect to acquire a meter from the Meter Asset Programme (MAP).”