The proposed monthly or quarterly minor review of tariff by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has been rejected by Electricity consumer groups. According to them the tariffs should remain semi-annual as it was since 2012, or it should be made annual.
The Multi Year Tariff Order
The Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO) 2015 was signed in December 2015 but implementation was in February 2016. No reviews have been implemented for the last 21 months even though some minor reviews holding every six months have been done.
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According to NERC implementing MYTO 2015 has caused a rise in foreign exchange. Consequently resulting in the electricity market shortfall. They also added that power generation dropped due to gas constraints and vandalism. It dropped from the projected 3220 gigawatts to about 1,500gigawatts.
(MAN) The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria expressed concern that the monthly or quarterly implementation of the tariff will be detrimental to the manufacturing sector. Mr. Tomi Akingbogun is the Chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Consumers Advocacy Network (NECAN). According to him any increase in the tariff review will greatly affect electricity consumers.
Additionally he urged the Federal Government to protect consumers’ interest by prevailing on the Distribution Companies (DisCos). This is in a bid to do customer enumeration and adequately meter them before any tariff review.
Mr. Adetunji  Aeyeye  of the Association of Nigeria Electricity Distributors represents the DisCos. According to him it is global practice to review tariff monthly but that NERC could devise means of implementing it quarterly or annually. He notes that the result of the review should not reflect in the DisCos’ monthly energy invoices from the GenCos until it is implemented.
Prof. Frank Okafor is the responding NERC’S Commissioner for Engineering, Performance and Monitoring(EPM). He says there was no immediate plan to raise tariff. He adds that for the sake of record, computations are done and may not be implemented maybe on annual basis. Also that they must do things the way they should be done to give investors confidence.
