OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The federal government’s National Mass Metering Programme, NMMP has fallen short of its monthly target by approximately 11, 000 installations.
Data sourced from the electricity market regulator, NERC revealed that meters deployed by the 11 utility firms, DisCos last November fell short by 11, 003 meters from a scheduled monthly target of 25, 353 meters.
The federal government had last year introduced the NMMP, and had made an undisclosed fund available to DisCos to immediately roll out 1,000,000 Meters in the first phase. According to President Buhari, the move was in a bid to end estimated billing in all forms in Nigeria.
The DisCos had in line with the first phase 1 million metering target contracted same number of meters, with Abuja DisCos getting an allocation of 101, 186 meters. Benin DisCo got an allocation of 90,870 meters, Eko 79,178, Enugu 92,381, Ibadan 103,997, Ikeja 106,701, Jos 88,538, Kaduna 86,957, Kano 87,747, Port Harcourt 77,070, and Yola 85,376 meters.
However, despite the expected monthly target of 25, 353, the DisCos were able to distribute only 14, 350 meters (14, 097 one phase meters and 253 three-phase meters), leaving a deficit of 11, 003 meters.
The NMMP was launched in October. But the first phase installations which kicked off last November did not see any meter distributed in December, or report of distribution this January either.
Overall, FG targets 6 million distributions nationwide. Although the exact amount released for the project was not released, however, speculations say budgeted funds fall between N269.38bn and N497.13bn. The federal government currently has a 40 percent shareholding in the power sector.
On the other hand, meters distributed under the Meter Assets Providers, MAPs programme by the 11 DisCos fell behind target by 115, 560 meters following a monthly target of 166, 781 meters. This means the DisCos were able to discuss just 51, 221 meters under the MAPs last November.
Metering under the MAPs targets 6, 588, 971 meters with a total of just 508, 812 meters installed to date.
From data gathered, 122, 737 meters were deployed in 2019, 103, 780 deployed Q1 2020, 67, 746 distributed in Q2 2020, and 125, 311 meters in Q3 last year under the MAPs.
Meters distributed by the 11 DisCos last October under the MAPs amounted to 38, 017.