The cost of a single-phase electricity meter has risen to over N130,000 from N88,000 in the first quarter of this year.

This is the second time the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission would approve an increase in the prices of prepaid meters.

Sunday PUNCH gathered that the price of a single-phase meter ranged from N130,000 to N139,000, while a three-phase meter was sold between N219,000 and N229,000, depending on the vendor.

This is just as some consumers who have yet to be metered continued to lament high estimated billing from their Electricity Distribution Companies.

The consumers on direct connection lamented that they receive estimated billings every month, stating that the amount being charged by DisCos is not usually commensurable to the units of energy they used.

A single-phase smart meter was sold at N106,802.69 while the three-phase smart meter rose from N154,600 in May this year to goes for N210,751.61.

According to some of the electricity distribution companies who spoke to our correspondent, DisCos no longer have control over meter sales, stating that the customers deal directly with the meter asset provider, who is mandated to supply the meter within 10 working days after payment.

The Chief Executive Officer of Femadec Group, Fola Akinola, recently said meter application portals were shut in April because the vendors and the DisCos were regularising prices to reflect the current economic realities.

“In a situation where you fixed the price of meters when $1 was around N500, and now that $1 is over N1,300, you cannot sell the ones you have because you will not be able to replace them. People cannot bring in meters because of the exchange rate,” he stated.

Consumers kick

In an interview with our correspondent on Saturday, the Executive Director of the Electricity Consumers Protection and Advocacy Centre, Princewill Okorie, wondered why NERC would approve another meter price increase at a time the consumers are still struggling with the Band A tariff hike.

According to Okorie, Discos, aided by NERC, have been extorting Nigerians by failing to abide by the MAP policy which stipulated that consumers should get energy credit as a refund for meters paid for.

“The MAP scheme policy says that if a consumer pays for a meter, he should get a refund through energy credit. How many consumers have been paid back?

“Why will this sector be only about collecting money from the consumers without service delivery, transparency and accountability? This is because nobody punishes or monitors the Discos. It still boils down to the consumer aspect of the sector not being taken seriously.

The consumer rights activist disclosed that during the 2022 tariff hike, NERC had approved for DisCos that for every bill a consumer pays, a certain percentage should be for the Meter Acquisition Fund.

In June this year, the Federal Government approved N21bn under the Presidential Metering Initiative to provide meters to unmetered customers at no cost.

Consumers are asking how the N21bn Mater Acquisition Funds allocated to the DisCos were spent.

NERC spokesman, Usman Arabi, could not be reached at the time of filing this report.

An official of the commission who spoke on anonymity told our correspondent that customers are not to pay for meters under this initiative.

Asked if this would not amount to discriminating against those who have been paying for meters for all these years, the NERC official retorted, “Those people are supposed to be refunded by the DisCos through energy credit and the commission is following up on the compliance.”

Another source told our correspondent that the MAF meters are for Band A customers only.

“The Phase 1 MAF meters will be given to Band A customers for free. It will eventually go round to other customer classes”, said the source.

However, our correspondent observed that the metering gap is still as high as seven million of the 13 million electricity customers.

The Executive Director of Research and Advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, Sunday Oduntan, told our correspondent that the meter policy has changed, saying DisCos no longer have control over meter sales.

Meanwhile, some customers of electricity distribution companies in the southwestern part of Nigeria have lamented the amount being given to them by the Eko Electricity Distribution Company and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company.

The consumers who complained to Sunday PUNCH said the monthly bills were choking and unpayable.

An EKEDC customer, Christina Monyeh, said she had been receiving a ‘crazy bill’ from EKED since July 11, 2023, when the company charged her N394,286.03.

She said, “The crazy billing started in July when we were billed N394,286.03, it increased to N650,285.04 in December 2023 and it went on like that. To our surprise, they brought a bill of N1,134,129.05 in January, N1,350,727.55 in February and N746,945,00 in July.

“We had prepaid meter which we usually load between N40,000 and N60,000 electricity units on it. But in June 2023, some officials of the EKEDC came to the house and said the meter was stagnant; I don’t know what that means. They placed us on direct since then.

“We applied for meter in January 2024, but the meter was not given to us. In May this year, the EKEDC claimed that the address we supplied was not correct. I suspect they didn’t want to give the meter to us because of the crazy billing”, she stated.

A customer of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company in Osogbo, Ismail Kolapo, lamented that his house received N700,000 electricity bill from the company.

He said, “IBEDC’s bill is choking and unpayable because I don’t know why they would give us N700,000 bill for when we didn’t have a cold room.

“Around February this year, we approached one of the marketers of the IBEDC for prepaid meter. We paid N80,000 for one face meter and an additional N10,000 as consultation fee. A week later, we were told IBEDC had closed the portal for meter procurement.”

But the Head of Media Relations of the IBEDC, Busolami Tunwase, said the company had no control over the price of meter.

She said, “No customer is billed arbitrarily. There’s something we call capping policy for those who do not have a meter, it is an accountability mechanism put in place to ensure that customers are not billed arbitrarily beyond their cumulative usage. The policy is to ensure that no customer is cheated.”

Reacting, the General Manager, Corporate Communications and Strategy of EKED, Babatunde Lasaki, also said none of the customers of the distribution company are charged indiscriminately.

“Note that access to pre-paid meters cannot be denied to any customer under any circumstances,” he stated.

Source: https://punchng.com/Consumers-lament-as-electricity-meter-prices-rise

Witnessing the effect of two things

1. Not running an actively exporting economy that exports manufactured gooods and services...instead being so fixated on oil, that we have a very weak economy.

All NIgerian leaders (yes including GEJ, Buhari and tinubu...take that!) have been bad leaders largely because the economic policy is based essentially on the price of whatever resource we sell. This leaves us prone to debt and inflation and a very very weak naira...with the result that we have high prices of meters.

Lack of a decent industrial sector means even local industries have to import spares from outside the country. Here we are.


2. Meter workers too have to eat. Many meters are made here, and the workers too are subject to the issues in the economy. As a result....prices go up so that the meter workers who make your meters have to eat.

It would be silly really to sell meters for N20000 and expect people to make a living from the losses resulting therein


3. Frankly speaking...expecting government to subsidise everything on a budget of just 18 billion dollars....yes, you heard me right....is basically asking for more and more debt.

I mean, many countries have far far more cash than we do, but don't do subsides for everything...or try to do subsides for everything...like we do. They would be broke in no time

Even this meter thing...it is obvious that if government tried to subsidise it down to N20000 ......it would make them go broke.





That is why any decent government for Nigeria would not do what this APC government is doing...they would embark on a programme that would lead us to....manufactured goods and services, and a decent tax to gdp ratio.

E go reach everybody.

Meters are running with the speed of light this days.

this meter issue is nothing but a scam.

roundman:
Big scam,on a normal that thing nor suppose pass 15k... just normal Nigerian exploitation.

it is just something else to see the government empower their cronies to exploit us at will, to know that our abundant resource is what they force us to pay for is demoralizing.

government carry our money buy meter give private company make them sell give us make profit without them returning our money give us. only for Nigeria.

Free meter cost is rising,very good one.

Tinubu well done oo.... before tinubu will finish his tenure, other countries will be using Nigeria as a prison. The judge will be like; I hereby sentence u to 21 years in Nigeria...

nairalanda1:
Witnessing the effect of two things

1. Not running an actively exporting economy that exports manufactured gooods and services...instead being so fixated on oil, that we have a very weak economy.

All NIgerian leaders (yes including GEJ, Buhari and tinubu...take that!) have been bad leaders largely because the economic policy is based essentially on the price of whatever resource we sell. This leaves us prone to debt and inflation and a very very weak naira...with the result that we have high prices of meters.

Lack of a decent industrial sector means even local industries have to import spares from outside the country. Here we are.


2. Meter workers too have to eat. Many meters are made here, and the workers too are subject to the issues in the economy. As a result....prices go up so that the meter workers who make your meters have to eat.

It would be silly really to sell meters for N20000 and expect people to make a living from the losses resulting therein


3. Frankly speaking...expecting government to subsidise everything on a budget of just 18 billion dollars....yes, you heard me right....is basically asking for more and more debt.

I mean, many countries have far far more cash than we do, but don't do subsides for everything...or try to do subsides for everything...like we do. They would be broke in no time

Even this meter thing...it is obvious that if government tried to subsidise it down to N20000 ......it would make them go broke.





That is why any decent government for Nigeria would not do what this APC government is doing...they would embark on a programme that would lead us to....manufactured goods and services, and a decent tax to gdp ratio.

What he said 🥹

The minister of power should be sacked. The man is incompetent.

From free meter now to 130k.

Kai Tinubu

I thought they said they reversed the price ?
A- all
P-promises
C-cancelled

Very unfortunate government and their braindead supporters.

Now this didn’t follow but have never been among people to defame women but Nigeria girls can do better.
Been celibate for 2 years now and the First Lady of 24yrs am meeting is a walking borehole.
Nigerian girls should learn contentment pls. Na ojukokoro and lack of contentment they cause all these nonsense.
I just lost interest in dating again,so 😔

Why not give customers electricity meter free of charge while they only buy units. It's just like communication companies asking their customers to buy mast, pays the engineer that will install it and still buy credit.

Everything about Nigeria is annoying.

No difference between the power holding company and the Nigerian police, they are thieves with government backing.

Corruption

If wish there was a way the universe would treat people based on who they voted during elections. If this was the case, most of these people who voted based on tribe and political party will never vote APC

I just got a prepaid meter fixed last Sunday!


Hmmm!

Heartbreaking 💔

Wait ooo I thought they wanted to make this thing free so where is 130k now coming from

Nawa ooo

Time to remove Tinubu

cjudy:

E go reach everybody.

Dey play na 😂🤣😅

Nigerians seem too pampered with subsidies that they can't face realities of a free market

Good

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Ok

SEGLIZ:
this meter issue is nothing but a scam.

Big scam,on a normal that thing nor suppose pass 15k... just normal Nigerian exploitation.

I think the next phase is mass metering which the Minister of Power said is about to take effect.

2 million meters a year, which is being finalised.

But fellow Nigerians, if we want good things, we should be ready to pay for it.

I think if the infrastructure gets robust enough to make light constant and uninterrupted, prices overall will come down but could take some years.

Minister of power, keep working. 6,000 MW by December and do a road to 12,000 MW by Dec Next year.

TCN ought to work harder to complete their projects, make it more robust with bigger evacuation carrying capacity and safeguard it.

They should tell NASS to pass a vandalism act if none exist, and have some security operatives deployed to guard their critical assets, and they pay the security operatives from their budget. The security operatives will get specialised training in surveillance, patrols, aerial reconnaissance and to use deadly force on vandals caught in the act.