For an average Nigerian, applying for an electricity meter has remained a herculean task, as it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than applying for and getting a meter from the Distribution Companies.
But recent finding by The Nation has indicated that the increasing difficulty of consumers applying for electricity meters across the Distribution Companies (Discos) is not unconnected with the inability of the Discos to comply with a regulation put in place by the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which bothers on the time frame between time of application, payment and installation deadline for a customer.
According to our market intelligence findings, a large number of prospective meter applicants are finding it increasingly difficult to log in to the various links provided by their Discos for meter application not because of technical issues as they may have been made to believe. Rather, is may have stemmed from a deliberate act to avoid sanctions from the industry regulator, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
A NERC regulation on meter allocation and installation stipulates that a Discos must install a meter that has been paid for by a customer within 10 working days. “Where a person has paid for meter under the Meter Acquisition Programme / National Mass Metering Programme (MAP/NMMP) regulation and you are not metered within 10 working days, please report to the Commission with evidence of payment,” the NERC advised on its website.
Sources in the industry, especially inside sources in some of the Discos, told The Nation that because of the inadequacy of meters, the timeframe given for installation of the commodity by the industry regulator, that is NERC, and the strive to avoid the regulator’s sanctions should the Discos not be able to meet the 10 working days deadline for installation, portals for application are usually difficult to access.
A source in one of the leading Discos confided in The Nation that deliberately, the utilities make the platform inaccessible to consumers and only open it up when they are sure they have meters to allocate.
“The Discos are simply playing games with meter application. They make the platform difficult to access because once an application made has been paid for, NERC rules mandate that such applicant must have his meter installed within 10 working days. A contravention of this rule attracts sanctions for a Disco from NERC. This is why you will see an applicant struggling for over two weeks and in some instances, a month just to apply,” the source, who pleaded for anonymity, explained at the weekend.
Capitalising on this shortcoming, some staff members of the Discos are exploiting the situation to rip off consumers. A marketer with another Disco explained that some staff members of utilities have formed a syndicate that specialises in keeping a close tab on the website to know when it opens and immediately assists
“Completing meter application online is very challenging. What happens is that once in two or three weeks, the portal for application opens up, usually, at about 1:00 am and 4:30 am. It is during this time that the lucky customers are able to fill the forms on their own- that is if they are awake at such times and if they are aware because nobody knows when the portal will be available,” the source said.
Based on internal information, marketers that are contracted by customers for meter allocation, with the help of their colleagues, especially those in the information technology (IT) department are immediately availed of the state of the portal, and then proceed with application for their clients.
“Aside the official amount charged for meters, some marketers charge as much as N30,000 to N50,000 as their own payment for rendering such service. You have to know its not an easy thing to keep vigil over an application portal for days or weeks in some instance, just to fill a form on a portal,” a marketer told The Nation.
A customer on the platform of a Disco in the south west region of the country, Gbade Siyanbola, corroborated the findings. He explained he had to contract a marketer in his utility provider’s employ.
“I tried registering but unable to do so; I got a marketer and after about one month, she called me at about 2:45 am to ask me for money to pay immediately because the “portal just opened” and may close before dawn. I sent her the money immediately and within six days after payment, I got my four meters installed. I probably would still have been waiting if I had insisted on this myself,” Siyanbola said.
The issue of metering has remained a challenging task in the electricity sector. The NERC, in its 2024 third quarter (Q3) report, made it known that approximately 53.85 per cent of registered electricity customers across the country are yet to be metered.
According to NERC, 6,156,726, representing 46.15 per cent of 13,339,635 registered electricity customers have been metered as of September 30, 2024. This means that 7,182,909 customers are yet to be metered, representing 53.85 per cent of unmetered electricity customers across the country.
It stated in the report: “184,507 end-user customers were metered across all the Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) with Ikeja, Ibadan, and Abuja DisCos recording the highest number of meter installations, accounting for 25.45 per cent; 21.48 per cent; and 14.61 per cent respectively, of the total installations.
“Relative to 2024/Q2 when 51,826 customers were metered, there was a +256.01 per cent increase in the total number of customers metered in 2024/Q3.”
The NERC report also indicated that Eko, Ibadan, Ikeja and Benin DisCos recorded the greatest improvements of 2,120 per cent, 575.60 per cent, 417.40 per cent, and 389.32 per cent respectively in the number of meter installations compared to the second quarter of 2024.
On the contrary, Aba, Kaduna, and Jos DisCos, recorded 43.90 per cent, Kaduna 24.69 per cent and Jos 9.31 per cent decline in the number of meter installations in the review quarter, respectively.
Stakeholders in the industry have at several times, expressed concerns at the huge gap of unmetered customers despite penalties to get the DisCos to comply with NERC directives against capping estimated billing for electricity consumers.
These concerns were manifest in the NERC report which indicated that for Q3’24, metering and billing accounted for 63 per cent of customer complaints received across all Discos in the third quarter (Q3) of 2024. From the report, the number of complaints received from all DisCos in Q3 2024 was 328,696. According to the regulator, this represented a 14.35 percent increase compared to the 287,441 complaints received in Q2 last year.
It stated: “The most common issues among the 328,696 complaints received by DisCos in 2024/Q3 were metering, 41.95 per cent; billing, 21.28 per cent and service interruption, 7.05 per cent. These three complaints categories cumulatively accounted for 70.28 per cent of the total complaints in the quarter.
