Senate Urges Electricity Regulatory Commission To Abolish Fixed Charges …..Says Consumers should no more pay for poles, transformers
Adetokunbo Fakeye
Nigerian Senate has urged the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), to abolish fixed charges collected from electricity consumers. It also asked them to stop asking consumers to buy poles and transformers.
The resolutions were made by the Senate at Tuesday’s plenary session, after reviewing the operations of the electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) since the unbundling of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
During the deliberation, most of the Senators, who contributed to the motion, narrated tales of woes on electricity supply and billing in their constituencies, accusing the DISCOs of running fraudulent operations and acts of extortion.
The Senators also lamented that while they expected the privatisation of the power sector to guarantee stable power supply, the situation had grown from bad to worse.
Based on submission of majority of the lawmakers, the Senate urged the commission to advise the DISCOs to end bulk metering as well as halt the practice of making consumers pay for poles and transformers, which by law, are properties of electricity distribution companies. ,
They also resolved that consumers should give notice of where they purchase items to the DISCOs and the DISCOs should in turn be entitled to recover their expenses from subsequent consumption of electricity.
