It is not for fun that I am always excited whenever there is any new development in the country’s power sector. My ardent fans know why. I will however repeat myself for the benefit of those who are not familiar with my column. I love commenting on the power sector because I have been a serial victim of almost anything that is wrong with the sector, particularly with regards to estimated billing. It is my passion for the sector that made me return to it two weeks ago when I wrote on the proposed 3,000MW Lagos State power project, on March 4.
At the risk of repeating myself, I have always said that we cannot get any sustainable improvement in the power sector if we continue with the present template. Nothing has happened to vitiate that position. Somehow, we have to tinker with the extant template; somehow, something must give; which is what the Lagos power project represents because it is a paradigm shift of sort. One can only imagine what the situation would have been if we have had similar projects replicated across the country.
But one of the most fascinating developments, for me, is the new regulation in the sector which allows other firms, other than the distribution companies (DISCOs), to provide meters to power consumers. The issue of giving prepaid meters to consumers has remained as contentious as ever, despite the privatisation of the sector; which should not be. Billing is an important component of the power mix. All over the world, power consumers pay for what they consume only. Not so in Nigeria, where some people sit in the comfort zones of their offices and allocate figures that catch their fancy as bills that they expect consumers to pay. In some instances, the refusal of consumers to pay these crazy bills has led to a situation where the unpaid parts of the bills accumulated to hundreds of thousands over the years, which, tragically, the DISCOs keep carrying in their books as debts owed by power consumers.
Of course, many Nigerians lived grudgingly with this abnormality for years under the defunct National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), and the immediate past Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) apparently because both were public entities.
But they heaved a sigh of relief when the sector was eventually privatised in 2013, hoping that the days of crazy or estimated bills were over. Alas, they were wrong! It has continued and there seems a deliberate effort on the part of the DISCOs not to want to let go of the old order. Apparently, it pays them because it allows them to get revenue that they never earned. How could people buy power distribution firms without understanding the place of accurate billing because, if they understand its importance, they would not have been comfortable to continue giving bills based on estimates for more than four years! A major danger in this I have always pointed out were occasions when we never had power supply in my area for about three weeks (sometimes six weeks the light never blinked), yet we were given the same amount as estimated bills for the uninterrupted darkness!
If the DISCOs were serious about providing meters, they would have gone farther than they have done in deploying same, despite the harsh business environment in the country, which is not peculiar to the power sector, anyway. As a matter of fact, I learnt at least one of them is doing very well in this regard. I won’t mention its name so it does not sound like one is promoting it or trying to de-market others. Well, some people may argue that it is because the area that DISCO is covering is small. If this is true, then, the ones managing areas that are too big for them should shed weight. There should be a way to dance around this. But the impression that comes across is that of DISCOs that want to continue getting rent instead of revenue; hence, they have been foot-dragging on the issue of prepaid meters. Instead of creatively looking for ways to solve the meter problem, they have been offering excuses as to why it is not an easy route to take.The same way they give excuses as to why power supply cannot be better than it is unless and until things are done their own way, which means, at the expense of hapless power consumers.
I have nothing against the DISCOs. In fact, I make bold to say that they will see me as an indispensable and reliable ally whenever they are ready to do business the way it should be done. Unlike millions of other voiceless Nigerians, I cannot afford to be silent when people managing an important aspect of our lives are not only not doing it right, but they seem not ready to want reforms that can change the course of events in the sector for better.
It is on this note that I congratulate the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for the new regulation which has (as it were) effectively stripped the DISCOs of the sole responsibility of providing meters. This responsibility is now to be shared with the Meter Asset Providers (MAPs). NERC’s Commissioner, Legal, Licensing and Compliance, Dafe Akpeneye, disclosed the new regulation at the 25th Monthly Power Sector Meeting in Abuja. He said NERC saw the unavailability of meters as a very serious concern and therefore met with all the stakeholders with a view to charting the way forward. “We all arrived at the same answer that we have to do something different. We can no longer leave this very important obligation to the distribution companies alone; other players have to come into this space. So, we went about creating the NERC Meter Asset Provider Regulation, 2018…”
This is good music that will resonate well with power consumers. But it may not with the DISCOs. Yet, they have little choice in the matter unless they want to incur the wrath of their customers, especially since they have been unable to solve the prepaid meter riddle in the last four years. What Nigerians look forward to is cooperation among all the stakeholders to make the new arrangement work. With this regulation, power consumers now have the choice of whether to obtain meters from the MAPs or do self-financing with the DISCOs. I commend the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, for the successful negotiation of the out-of-court settlement in a meter contract awarded since 2003 which lasted till last year, to actualise the MAPs regulation. Apart from facilitating meter deployment to power consumers and attracting investment in the sector, MAPs will also provide jobs for Nigerians. If the government can sustain the momentum of some of these policies, I can see things turning around in the power sector faster than can be imagined.
Understanding Okorocha
There must be something special about Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State. That is why some of his programmes and policies have always been subjects of controversies. I think the governor came into the limelight of criticism when he decided to give civil servants in the state 18 days holiday in December to celebrate the Christmas/New Year. People, including those who do not understand the cultural milieu behind such a novel gesture picked holes in the holiday. They said it was a recipe for laziness. Yet, the average Igbo person does not joke with that period. That is a time the whole of the southeast bubbles, with people who have gone to the cities returning home to give back to their local communities part of what they brought from the cities. So, what is wrong in formalising such holiday?
Then, in 2016 when the governor came up with what obviously was a pragmatic attempt to reduce the pains of civil servants in the state by making Thursdays and Fridays farming days (work-free) to allow them farm to supplement their meager and irregular wages; some people pooh holed the measure. Even some of his colleagues who did nothing beyond lamenting that Abuja had nothing in the feeding bottle to feed them with joined the bandwagon of critics lampooning the highly cerebral governor. They did not see the advantages inherent in the new policy.
Again, still drawing from his reservoir of knowledge, Governor Okorocha embarked on the erection of statues all over the state. Envious of this cardinal programme of the governor’s administration, perhaps the first of its kind anywhere in the world, the critics went to town again, criticising these otherwise innocent erections.
One thing I like about Gov Okorocha is that he has never allowed these good-for-nothing, arm-chair critics to discourage him. He has since created a Ministry of Happiness headed by his own sister. That, too, did not go without a fierce fight with critics. The current bile is Governor Okorocha’s scheming to have his son-in-law succeed him as governor. Haba, why can’t some people credit the governor with some intelligence or common sense? If they were in the governor’s shoes, who would they have anointed as their successor? How best can you show appreciation to someone who stood by you through thick and thin; in sickness and in health; the pillar of your erections, other than by doing what Governor Okorocha wants to do for his son-in-law? That is the only way by which the erections can be consolidated in order to move the state forwarding forward (to quote a former southeast governor)!
I have seen Governor Okorocha struggling to justify this position. He doesn’t need all that stress. Only the deep can communicate with the deep.