OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has assured electricity customers who paid for meters under the Meter Asset Provider, MAP, scheme of a refund.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Commission’s Head of Public Affairs, Mr Michael Faloseyi, said modalities for refund is being worked out.
“Given that all prudent costs are borne by customers, the full cost of metering would form part of the tariff once the industry assumes full cost recovery.
“All customers who made payment for meters under the MAP scheme would be refunded. The modality for the refund of the meter’s cost funded by the customers either through upfront payment or amortised payments is being worked out,” he said.
His response came following recent announcement by the Federal Government that six million free meters would be distributed under the National Mass Metering Programme, NMMP.
The MAP regulations was approved by NERC in March 2018 to fast-track the closure of the metering gap in the sector.
The scheme kicked off on May 1, 2019 with two options for acquiring meters: upfront payment and payment in instalments through monthly metering service charges.
However, the scheme suffered setbacks in the area of fiscal policy and funding.
“Meter deployments are commencing in earnest across all Discos under the first phase of the NMMP,” he added.
According to him, the first rollout of meters had already commenced.
The Federal Government in November said it had made funding available in the first phase of roll out of 1,000,000 meters.
