The Federal Government is set to review electricity tariff as the year ends.
This became known as the authorities announced on Wednesday that it commenced the procurement of four million new meters.
It was learnt that the meters would be distributed free of charge to unmetered consumers nationwide.
The number of unmetered electricity consumers in the land are estimated to be about eight million.
Over 860,000 meters were said to have been distributed for free to power users under phase zero of the National Mass Metering Programme.
Indication emerged that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission would review the power tariffs by next month, barring unforeseen circumstance.
The Deputy General Manager, Consumer Affairs, NERC, Shittu Shuaibu, described the rolling out of the four million free meters being procured as the phase one of the NMMP.
Shuaibu said on a live radio programme, “The programme is supposed to run in three phases which include phase zero, phase one and phase two. Phase zero was rounded up around the end of October. Phase one has actually commenced and it is another government intervention of about four million meters.
“So far, we have deployed about 860,000 or close to 900,000 meters which were part of the one million meters that was procured as part of government intervention. For the four million meters, the procurement process has commenced.”
The government, he said, was giving out loans for the provision of the four million meters. He state that the power distribution companies would be part of the loans which would be refunded over a period of 10 years.
On plans for tariff review, the NERC in a notice on the review of transmission loss factor in Multi Year Tariff Order, informed the general public and industry stakeholders of the commission’s intention to commence two key reviews.
It outlined them to include the Extraordinary Review of Transmission Company of Nigeria’s Loss Factor in the MYTO, and the processes for the December 2021 review of MYTO – 2021.
It said that the December 2021 MYTO review was to consider changes in relevant macroeconomic indices, generation capacity and capital expenditure required for evacuation and distribution of the available generation capacity in compliance with extant rules.
