OpeOluwani Akintayo
18 October 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, and the Electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos entered a closed-door meeting yesterday to discuss the new tariff and other matters, SweetcrudeReports has learned.
According to information at our disposal, the meeting was set up as requested by the eleven DisCos, to make a presentation to NERC on issues regarding the newly proposed tariff and how “other issues” can be resolved.
This newspaper learned that core investors in the Nigerian electricity business were also invited to the meeting, including Chief Executives of the DisCos.
“It’s going to be an all-day meeting where various issues relating to DisCos, especially the new tariffs would be discussed and ironed out,” our source said.
On Friday, NERC announced that tariff payable by electricity consumers may increase by 61.5 percent anytime soon.
According to the commission, the actual tariff for one kilowatt-hour of power is meant to be N51, as against the current unit cost of N31.58 for which electricity distribution companies are selling the commodity.
NERC said the actual tariff of N51/kwh, was arrived at based on the economic fundamentals considered when carrying out minor tariff reviews, adding that it had completed the process for the new tariff but had yet to receive an approval from the Federal Government to announce its implementation.
The commission’s move to implement the new tariff was based on several complaints of the inappropriateness of the N31.58kwh current price by the DisCos.
The DisCos had alleged that they bought the commodity at N68kwh but were mandated by NERC to sell at a far lesser rate, which according to them, leads to debts on their path.