House of Reps seeks punishment for DisCos over estimated billing
The House of Representatives in a resolution on Tuesday urged the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to order electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to discontinue extortive estimated/arbitrary billing with immediate effect.
This comes the sequel to a unanimous adoption of a motion by Rep. Afuape Moruf (APC-Ogun) at plenary on Tuesday.
Moruf added that the Electricity Act, 2023, prescribed a comprehensive and institutional framework to guide the operation of a privatized, contract, and rule-based electricity market.
Moruf noted that it was within the ambit of which every participant in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) must operate, citing that the NERC is the NESI regulator, saddled with the responsibility to ensure adequate supply of electricity to consumers.
He added that it was expected to ensure that prices charged were fair to consumers, though sufficient to allow the finances of Disco’s activities, as well as enable them to make a reasonable profit for efficient operation,
Moruf said the DisCos had the statutory duties to provide for power transmission facilities and other ancillary services to ensure reliability and support the transmission of electricity from generation sites to consumers.
“Concerned that the distribution companies have demonstrated unfaithfulness toward the social contract with Nigerians, as enshrined and enhanced by the transitional effect of the Electric Power Reform Act, 2005 to the Electricity Act, 2023, having been inefficient in their services.
“They have condemnable attitudes toward expected investments, abdicating their statutory responsibilities for communities, private and other public entities, despite their humongous earnings, as extracted from the Q1 2023 report of the National Bureau of Statistics on a performance review of the 11 distribution companies,” he said.
Moruf also noted that the NERC had watched helplessly while communities, individuals, and corporate organizations assumed the responsibilities of providing electricity transmission facilities (meters, cables, and transformers) where they were either not available or repaired, where the same was faulty.
The House urged the NERC to put in place an effective metering plan, which assured consumers of fair billing, adding the NERC to invoke relevant provisions of the law and other extant agreements to penalize DisCos for exploiting and abusing the rights of consumers.
Speaker Tajudeen Abbas mandated the Committee on Power when constituted, to meet with the NERC and the distribution companies (DisCos) to work and resolve limitations to provide excellent service delivery to Nigerians.
