By Udeme AkpanTHE Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, Thursday, disclosed that additional 157,758 end-use customers’ meters were installed in the fourth quarter of 2020, Q4, 2020, indicating an increase of 20.5 percent, compared to 125,311 meters recorded in Q3, 2020.The Commission, which confirmed this in its Fourth Quarter 2020 Report, obtained by Vanguard, attributed the improvement to the ability of NERC to eliminate ‘the bottlenecks hitherto hampering the deployment of meters under the Mass Metering Programme, MAP scheme and subsequent introduction and deployment of meters under National Mass Metering Programme, NMMP.’It stated: “During the quarter under review, 121,609 and 36,149 new meters were installed under MAP and NMMP respectively. Notwithstanding the additional meters installed during 2020/Q4, the huge metering gap for end-use customers is still a key challenge in the industry.“The records of the Commission indicate that, of the 10,733,509 registered energy customers as at 31 December 2020, only 4,053,043 (37.76%) have been metered. Therefore, 62.24% of the registered electricity customers are still on estimated billing which has contributed to customer apathy towards payment for electricity bills.“A review of the customer population data indicate that only Ibadan and Port Harcourt DisCos recorded progress in the metering rate of their electricity customers as at 31 December 2020, as compared to 30 September 2020.READ ALSO: DISCOs’ remittance to NBET falls by 22.46% in Q2“To ensure speedy metering of electricity customers, the Commission, besides securing a 1-year waiver of levy previously imposed on imported meters, continued it’s monitoring of DisCos’ implementation of and compliance with the provisions of the MAP Regulations to fast-track meter roll-out.“Following the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN policy on mass metering, the Commission commenced the monitoring of the deployment of meters under the NMMP. The Commission commenced the review of MAP Regulations in order to provide a regulatory framework for NMMP scheme and fastrack the deployment of meters to close the metering gap in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry, NESI.”Also, commenting on consumer complaints, most of which were supply and meter-related, it stated: “During the fourth quarter of 2020, the eleven (11) DisCos received 230,497 complaints from their customers, indicating 5.26% more complaints than those received in the third quarter of 2020.“In total, the DisCos attended to 215,940 complaints representing an increase of 5.41 percentage point from the preceding quarter. The report shows that Ibadan, followed by Benin DisCo, had the lowest customers’ complaints resolution rates based on the proportion of complaints not addressed in the fourth quarter of 2020.”VANGUARD NEWS NIGERIA
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