The House of Representatives, on Wednesday, mandated its committee on power to investigate the failure of electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to replace obsolete metres and improve infrastructure, including the reliance on consumer contributions for maintenance and equipment replacement.

The House equally urged the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to ensure strict enforcement of the directive to electricity distribution companies to replace obsolete metres at no cost to consumers within a specified time frame.

The House also called on the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, to prioritise funding and incentives for upgrading electricity infrastructure, especially transformers, to reduce load-shedding and improve service delivery across the country.

The resolutions followed the adoption of a motion of urgent national importance by Rep Nnamdi Ezechi, on need to address metering crisis and associated challenges in the electricity distribution sector in Nigeria.

Moving his motion, Rep Ezechi raised concerns over the ongoing metering crisis in the country, particularly the failure of electricity distribution companies to replace obsolete metres as recently mandated by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

He said the development had led to the decommissioning of over one million metres, thereby exacerbating the challenging faced by the consumers.

Ezechi informed the House that many Nigerians who applied for metre upgrades months ago have not had their metres replaced, leaving them to resort to costly alternatives, such as paying over N200,000 for new metres, or facing exorbitant charges for direct connections, which could cost up to N500,000 for a few days.

The lawmaker further noted that the problem of maintaining electricity infrastructure, such as transformers, has continued to fall on the consumers.

Ezechi said consumers are often required to contribute funds for repairs, replacements, or storing cables and other maintenance costs, even though such responsibilities should lie with the electricity distribution companies.

He expressed concerns that infrastructure used by distribution companies including transformers have remained outdated without investments in new equipment to ease load-shedding and improve service delivery.

He lamented that many new transformers installed in communities are often privately procured through community contributions.

The lawmaker expressed concerns that the private sector?s monopolies in the electricity sector have not alleviated the inefficiencies in the sector, thus, raising questions about the effectiveness of privatisation in ensuring affordable and reliable electricity for all Nigerians.

Record-making recent narrative mandated electricity distribution companies to replace obsolete metres at no cost to consumers to ease the challenges in the metering system and improve electricity supply transparency.

The House while adopting the motion, directed electricity distribution companies to create accessible and transparent systems for metre upgrade and replacement with penalty for non-compliance to prevent exploitation of consumers. (Daily Trust)

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