By Anayo Ezugwu

THE Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, has attributed the slow pace of metering of electricity consumers in the country to inadequate liquidity. Oyebode Fadipe, general manager, corporate communication, pointed out that metering is aligned with the issue of liquidity in the sector, stressing that where there is issue of paucity of cash, it limits the firm’s capital expenditure.

Fadipe, who spoke in an audience participatory programme of Radio Nigeria, noted that the federal government has pegged a limit to which the Discos can spend its revenue. Besides, he explained the Discos have not been allowed to thrive with a cost reflective tariff.

“The issue of metering is tied to the issue of liquidity. Where there are no sufficient funds for investment in the sector, there is no way you can expect everything will go on smoothly. For instance, the fundamental part of the challenges that the Discos and indeed the power sector experiences is that there is a limit to your capital expenditure.

“You have a ceiling on your budget. You are not allowed to spend beyond a particular revenue level. Then how do you want to provide all the things that you want? That is also with prejudice to the fact that you don’t even have a cost reflective tariff that is supposed to help you have the cash to enable you purchase most of these things,” he said.

Fadipe, however, revealed that in its bid to intensify efforts at metering the customers in its franchise area, the AEDC recently purchased a single vehicle for N114 million. “We (AEDC) signed the contract for N10 billion for just meters alone and it was not going to give us a much as 300,000 pieces of meters for a customer population of over a million.

“From this Meter Assets Provider Programme, we are metering 900,000 in 36 months. Why did government decide that third party should go and handle that programme it was because clearly the Discos don’t have the financial capacity to meet up with that cost as much as it would have done, so let independent companies go and do it, which has its own advantage of creating employment for some people.”

Responding, Uket Ogbonga, secretary-general, Network for Electricity Consumers Advocacy of Nigeria, NECAN, recalled that the very reason for the privatisation of the power sector was that the federal government had no financial capacity to run it. He wondered why the Discos should cite excuse of cash crush, the same reason for which the entities were sold to the private investors, who were presumed to have the financial, management and technical capacities.

Ogbonga called on the federal government to embark on a total review of the models with which the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, privatised the power sector entities.

“We were told that private investors with the financial, technical and management capacity were to be brought on board. And when they unbundled the defunct PHCN and they were handed over, we are hearing a different story.

“And the story is that we don’t have the resources, that they (Discos) cannot meter customers because they don’t have the financial capacity to do that. So that is why we are rooting for a total review of all the models that were used for the privatization exercise. You can’t tell me I can’t do this business because of this problem and bring in somebody that has the capacity and he is coming to tell us I can’t do it.”

– June 28, 2018 @ 19:55 GMT |