Kunle Kalejaye
25 November 2016, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Eko Electricity Distribution Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU with Chines technology company, Huawei to expedite installation of prepaid meters within its network.
Starting with 100,000 meters installation, details of the agreement revealed that customers within Eko DISCO network will be fully metered which will mark the end of the MoU deal with Huawei.
Chairman of West Power Gas, Owners of Eko DISCO, Mr. Charles Momoh who spoke before the signing of the agreement at West Africa Power Industry Convention, WAPIC 2016 in Lagos, said the deal will speed up the company’s meter installation program before the deadline of Bureau of Public Enterprise, BPE five years metering scheme with distribution companies.
Eko DISCO Managing Director, Engr. Oladele Amoda who spoke after the signing said besides the Huawei deal, the company also has an agreement with Nigeria’s meter manufacturer, MOJEC and MOMANS to meter their customers.
“You know that we have another agreement with MOJEC and MOMANS. So we want to accelerate our metering process to ensure that we meet our five year agreement with BPE to meter our customers within the period. We signed a five years meeting program with BPE so we are accelerating our activities in order to meet the deadline,” he said.
Under the five years BPE agreement, Eko DISCO is expected to deploy 600,000 meters to its customers but currently has only done 60 percent of the figure.
Commenting on the duration of the metering installation program, Engr, Amoda said: “All things been equal, we hope to complete the installation of prepaid meters to all our customers in the next two years and meet BPE deadline. Although there are lots of factors affecting us such as the exchange rate, inflation etc. but from the way we have planned it, if everything goes well we are looking between two to three years, at least within BPE performance agreement period.”
