NERC: Capping of Estimated Billing By DISCOs.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has advised electricity distribution companies to accelerate the implementation of metering plans within a period of eighteen months,as failure to comply will exclude customers from paying for electricity.

Chairman of the commission, Dr Sam Amadi made this known on Tuesday,at a media briefing to clarify some recent developments in the electricity market,in abuja.

He said although customers paid for some meters,some of the DISCOs did not provide meters as expected to those who paid,while others failed to make adjustment in their billing software even six months after installation of CAPMI meters.

Amadi lamented that the Credited Advance Payment for Metering(CAPMI) scheme has suffered poor implementation as DISCOS make money from estimating their customers rather than metering them,despite customers' willingness to make advance payments for meters.

To this effect,the commission is therefore set to issue an order setting the credited advance payment itself after the stipulated period of 18months to allow DISCOs aggressively meter their CAPMI customers.

However, the NERC boss noted that this proposal is still subject to consultation with DISCOs before its final approval.

On Patronage for Local Meter Manufacturers, he. Said the leadership of NERC is strongly committed to promote local content because the agency want the growth in electricity sector to contribute to Improvement in Job creation and household income.

According to Amadi, in 2012 the Agency made the regulation on local content obligation every operator in the Nigerian electricity market to continuous localization of employment,services and technology.

" This mechanism in the local content is carefully designed not to intervene with the efficiency gains we expect from a privatized electricity market".

"It was also designed to provide a transparent and clear procedure for peer-review of the performance of every operator on local content obligation".