Mass metering: Senate knocks NERC over poor performance

The Senate Committee on Poweron Thursday slammed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission over poor performance on the mass metering project in the country despite the release of N33.4bn by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the project. The project targets one million metering of houses across the country between October 2020 and April 2021. Shoot […]

The Senate Committee on Poweron Thursday slammed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission over poor performance on the mass metering project in the country despite the release of N33.4bn by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the project.

The project targets one million metering of houses across the country between October 2020 and April 2021.

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Speaking at an interactive session with the committee at the National Assembly, NERC Chairman, Sanusi Garba, said the agency had only recorded 13% implementation as of March 19, 2021.

He said: “while N403,000 out of the targeted 1 million meters have been delivered to the various DISCOs, only 127, 000 have been installed, representing 13% performance.”

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

But the chairman of the committee, Senator Gabriel Suswam, said based on the poor performance recorded so far, the essence of intervention made by the federal government with the N59.2bn loan might not be achieved.

“Your performance report on the mass Metering project is not impressive and encouraging at all. The committee will want your commission and the DISCOs to appear before it again by the end of next month to see whether the assurance given on better performance will be done or not,” he said.