The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has revealed that electricity consumers who receive free prepaid meters will have to pay back the charges for up to 10 years.
Adelabu’s statement contradicts claims that customers who pay for the meters will have the cost reimbursed through energy credits.
Speaking in Ibadan recently, the minister acknowledged that the cost of meters is rising and said financing is a major challenge.
According to Adelabu, the Federal Government will fund the purchase of meters through various initiatives and customers will repay the cost over time.
“We can get funding for this meter and allow the customers to pay over time.
“When the government starts procuring meters, we’ll give it to the customers, and we’ll deduct the money over 10 years. In which case, you will not even feel it at all,” he explained.
He further explained that customers who buy 5,000 naira energy credits may have 100 naira deducted as a “free” meter they received from the government.
“Probably, if you buy a credit of N5,000, maybe N100 will go into the meter that we have given you. So, that’s what we are trying to do. We bring these meters in and reduce the gap that we have in the meters,” he said.
Adelabu claimed that the federal and state governments have raised 100 billion naira for the procurement of prepaid electricity meters.
He explained: “Mr President has set up what we call the Presidential Meter Initiative and set up a Presidential Meeting Council to address this issue. He made me the chairman of this council. The SA on Energy to Mr President is the secretary of the council. The mandate we have was to procure and install a minimum of 2 million meters on a yearly basis over the next five years.
“In the PMI, we have made good progress in sourcing the fund for this, and it is going to be by a combination of the federal and state governments. Today, we have received, and seen about N100bn fund that will go into the procurement of meters.”
He added that the World Bank has decided to help Nigeria procure close to 2 million meters in the next two years as part of the Distribution Sector Reconstruction Programme.
He revealed that $200 million of the $500 million DISREP fund will be used for the procurement of meters, saying this has reached an advanced stage.
