OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — Ikeja Electric has commenced the rollout of prepaid meters under the National Mass Metering Programme approved by the Federal Government.
A statement released by IE management said the rollout took effect from Friday.
According to IE, the programme is part of federal government’s effort to bridge the country’s metering gap and also cushion the effect of the Service Reflective Tariff on electricity consumers in Nigeria.
In line with this programme, the utility firm said it is committed to driving the roll out through a series of one-day metering initiative across different locations in its network.
“These metering initiative is designed to ensure a seamless metering process that allows customers to register and be metered on the same day after following due process”.
For the first phase of the programme which will run till the end of the year, Ikeja Electric said it is rolling out over 106,000 prepaid meters to customers across its six Business Units – Ikeja, Abule-Egba, Akowonjo, Oshodi, Ikorodu and Shomolu.
Beneficiaries of this programme, which will cut across all locations in IE network, will not be required to pay upfront for the installation of meters. Rather, the modalities of cost recovery for the meters will be clearly defined and communicated to the beneficiaries.
The primary objective of the National Mass Metering Programme is to increase the metering rate in the country and close the gap of unmetered customers. It is also expected that it will assist in reducing collection losses, while at the same time, increasing financial flows to achieve 100 percent market remittance obligation of the DisCos.
Part of the objectives also include the elimination of arbitrary estimated billing, improving network monitoring capability and provision of data for market administration and investment decision-making.
Apart from its job creation potentials in the Meter value chain, the program will further strengthen the local meter value chain by increasing local meter manufacturing, assembly and deployment capacity, all in support of Nigeria’s economic recovery plan.
“Once again, Ikeja Electric wishes to restate its commitment to bridging the metering gap by metering all its customers, to ensure an efficiently managed electricity supply industry that meets the yearnings of Nigerians”, the statement said.
