CBN Releases N33.2bn to DisCos for Mass Metering

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has disclosed that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has so far released the sum of N33.2 billion to electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) in the country for the mass metering of Nigerian households.

The commission noted that the figure is out of the N59.2 billion earmarked for the National Mass Metering Project (NMMP) of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government.

The disclosure came from the NERC chairman, Mr Sanusi Garba, while speaking during an interactive session among the Senate Committee on Power, NERC officials and representatives of the DisCos in Abuja.

Mr Garba explained further that the project, which is targeted at one million unmetered houses across the country and billed for execution between October 2020 and April 2021, has only attained 13 per cent implementation as of March 19, 2021.

According to him, “While 403,000 out of the targeted one million meters have been delivered to the various DISCOs, only 127,000 have been installed, representing 13 per cent performance.”

He added that, “The target performance duration for the project which is Phase One, entailing metering of one million houses across the country in reducing the metering deficit of 6.5 million, is six months, that is from October 2020 to April 2021.

“Though out of the N59.2 billion earmarked for the project, N33.4 billion has been released to the various DISCOs by the Central Bank of Nigeria but disbursement of the releases were very slow which resulted in many of them, accessing the fund in February.

“This largely contributed to the poor performance percentage by the DisCos for now, on the National Mass Metering Project.

“But with the chunk of the funds available to the DisCos now, the implementation performance index will rise astronomically within the next few weeks.

The federal government launched the NMMP in respect of which the CBN, in October 2020, issued the framework for financing of the project.

The framework seeks to, amongst others, increase the country’s metering rate and eliminate arbitrary estimated billing.

Through this guideline, the CBN will provide financing support to the DisCos for the procurement of meters for customers and the local meter manufacturers.