OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC has set September 1 for the takeoff of the new electricity tariffs.
The new date was contained in a note titled “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” published by the Commission.
According to the Commission, the new tariff date was approved by President Buhari, insisting that the “poor” would not be affected in the increment.
“The proposed serviced-based tariff review which comes into effect by 1st September 2020 will only affect customers that live in areas where their Discos promise to provide them electricity for at least 12 hours.
The development comes following President Buhari ordering an end to estimated billing while directing the electricity distribution companies, DisCos to embark on mass metering.
Termed the Service-Based Tariff, SBT regime, the Commission explained that “…there will never be a good time to review the tariff. The interest here is to ensure that Nigerians are migrated to a threshold where there will be continuous improvement in the quality of service delivery”.
“The SBT will operate a progressive regime-the customers that receive the highest quality of service (12-24 hours per day) will pay the highest tariff. Customers that receive under 12 hours of service per day will continue paying their current tariff, that is, no increase on September 1,” the regulator noted.
Further explanation said only the wealthy customers in the areas that receive over 12 hours service will experience tariffs increase.
According to the note, the service-based tariff will relieve the government of paying electricity subsidy on the rich and allow it to divert scarce resources to more pressing sectors, including education and healthcare.
“The tariff review is only expected to affect less than the richest 25 per cent of the population living in the most prosperous areas of the country. The richest 10 per cent of the population will cover as much as 50 per cent of tariff increase” it added.
It assured that the service reflective regime will allow for incremental improvement in the quality of supply, stating that depending on the historical supply pattern, customers will observe increased hours of supply as the Discos migrate them to higher service bands . “Ultimately, customers will pay for service commensurate to the number of hours they receive,” NERC said.