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Yemisi Izuora
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| The Minster of Power, Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, says the Implementation of customer eligibility in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI, would help improve capacity for distribution of electricity to eligible consumers. |
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The minister made the declaration when he received regulations to guide the implementation by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in Abuja. Fashola had on May 15, declared four categories of eligible customers in NESI. The declaration, which permits some categories of electricity customers to buy power directly from the generation companies, was in line with the provisions of section 27 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005. The section enabled eligible customers to buy power from a licensee other than electricity distribution companies. “ Let me recap again, you are the statutory umpire to this sector; you make the rules; you proscribe the sanctions and you implement them. “Our role as a ministry is to make policy statements; as long as I am here, I will ensure that your independence on making of rules remain unhindered.“ He said the presentation of the much awaited document would further help improve the distribution of power for consumers who needed them. He also explained that consumers who were also ready make investment in providing distribution assets by themselves in a way to recover their cost could now embark on the process. He said that the process of drafting the rule entailed wide consultations with all the stakeholders, including many Nigerians that would be affected by the regulation. Fashola said implementation of the customer eligibility would affect activities of the DISCOs in some aspect. He, however, said that mechanisms in the regulation had been provided to ensure compensation for DISCOS. “I know that DISCOS will be affected in terms of revenue impact and I believe that this has been taken care of in the regulations. “ I know that consumers will be affected with regards to how they can possibly build out distribution assets and how they can get compensated. “So members of the public must therefore know that weather it is tariff setting, eligible customer declaration, NERC first did consultation before it made decision so that all the interest are carried on as much as possible.“ Fashola , who commended NERC for turning out the regulation, said that the much awaited regulation by Nigerians was the regulation on licensing meter service providers. “ While this is the much welcome regulation, I think the regulation that everybody is waiting for is the regulation of meters. “I hope that in a couple of days, you probably will be able to share that with us; members of the public are waiting. “It will be a good thing, if we can complete the metering regulation before this month is over and see how quickly it can stimulate the licensing of meter suppliers and ultimately to consumers .“ He said that the provision of the regulations and other giant strides being recorded in the sector were part of the implementation of the power sector recovery plan. Earlier, the Vice –Chairman of NERC, Mr Sanusi Garba, said it had carried out consultations in the six geo-political zones of the country to get inputs of stakeholders and Nigerians. He also said that the regulation had inputs from the technical support from USAID before approving the regulation. The 33-page customer eligibility regulations document is designed to facilitate competition in the supply of electricity, promote rapid expansion of generation capacity and open up a window for improvement in quality of supply. It also has the objective to encourage the opening up of third party access to transmission and distribution infrastructure, among other objectives. |