The Nigerian government, including the federal and state governments, plans to spend N100 billion in finance to import electricity meters into the country amid metering gap challenges.
Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, disclosed this while addressing broadcasters in Ibadan, Oyo State recently, noting that this was under the Presidential Meter Initiative program.
According to him, President Bola Tinubu’s administration has been making efforts to close the meter gap in Nigeria, adopting various initiatives.
“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 we have seen about N100bn that will go into the procurement of meters,” he said.
He added that the World Bank decided to support Nigeria with the procurement of almost two million meters in the next two years through the distribution sector recovery program.
Consequently, he noted that $200m out of the $500m DISREP fund from the World Bank would be used for meter procurement, saying this has reached an advanced stage.
“In fact, for the World Bank, we have issued contract awards. It’s just for them to start bringing the meters from overseas and locally. Because of the capacity requirements, we can not just depend on local patronage alone. We must bring it from other clients where it’s even cheaper”, he said.
He also justified why a single-phased electricity meter increased by around N80,000 to over N120,000.
Last year, the Association of Meter Manufacturers and Assemblers Nigeria, AMMON, kicked against the Nigerian government’s World Bank loan of $155 million for the importation of electricity meters into the country.
In April, Adelabu came under fire for awarding a N40 billion electricity meters import contract to a foreign firm, De Haryor Global.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s recent sectoral report showed that Nigeria has 12 million electricity customers, and a little over five million are metered.
