June 24, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government, through the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has approved N21,000,000,000 for electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) in the country to procure metres for consumers.
The NERC, in a release issued on Friday by its Chairman, Engr. Sanusi Garba and the Commissioner for Legal, Dale Akpeneye, said the amount, which will come from the Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF), would enable the DisCos to address the huge metering gap in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
The regulatory agency bemoaned the inability of the distribution companies to raise financing in the form of debt or additional equity, saying that it was the major constraint in the acquisition and deployment of end-use meters and other capital investments.
“The Meter Acquisition Fund (MAF) scheme was therefore developed and approved by the commission, primarily to address the challenge of DisCo creditworthiness inhibiting the deployment of end-use meter in Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) by creating a credible revenue stream from the market funds on the back of which long term financing may be secured by the utilities.
“To this effect, NERC has ordered the distribution companies to utilise the first tranche (“Tranche A”) of disbursement from the MAF scheme based on contributions made by DisCos as at the April 2024 market to, among others, procure and install meters for unmetered Band ‘A’ customers within their franchise areas.
“DisCos shall, within 14 days from the effective date of this order, conduct a transparent and competitive procurement process for meter price determination, selection and engagement of Meter Asset Providers MAPs/LMMAs for the metering of end-use customer meters under the MAF Scheme.
“These shall contain a report containing details of the process undertaken for the selection of MAPs/LMMAs, including meter price, meter specifications, and the list of customers to be metered, and shall be sent to the commission for approval within 20 days from the effective date of the order.
“Upon approval of the commission, the DisCo shall enter into contracts with selected MAPs/LMMAs on one of the following terms:
(i) Where an Advance Payment Guarantee (APG) issued by a commercial bank in Nigeria is provided by a qualifying MAP/LMMA, 30 percent of the contract sum shall be paid to the MAP/LMMA upon execution of the contract.
“A further two milestone payments shall be made upon the completion of 60 percent of contracted quantities and 100 per cent of the contract respectively, with the funds advanced against bank guarantee amortised over the payments.
“Where the MAP/LMMA do not request an advance payment, the milestone payments shall be made upon the verified installation of 20 per cent, 60 per cent and 100 per cent respectively of the contracted volume of meters,” NERC said.
A breakdown of how the money would be allocated among the eleven DisCos showed that Ikeja Electric with N4.36 billion would receive the highest amount, followed by Abuja DisCo with N2.99 billion.
Others are Eko DisCo N2.92 billion, Ibadan DisCo N2.51 billion, Enugu DisCo N1.72 billion, Benin DisCo N1.57 billion, Kano DisCo N1.56 billion, Port Harcourt DisCo N1.36 billion, Kaduna Electric N1.22 billion, Jos DisCo N521.90 million and Yola DisCo N243.35 million.
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