There are strong indications that implementation of the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) regulation recently introduced by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) originally billed to take off on April 3, 2018, will not commence this year afterwards.

Findings showed that this is because the Distribution Companies (Discos) are ill-disposed and unwilling to key into the project because of their inability to plug increasing energy theft across their networks. Further investigations revealed that arbitrary charges through estimated billing is helping the discos to recover costs arising from both technical loss and energy theft.

According to a human rights activist and the president/founder of Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria (Cafon), Sola Salako, the MAP is currently facing serious take-off challenges owing to the fact that Discos do not have statistics of consumers in their network and lacks accountability such that the only way to recover cost is through application of bill estimation.

Further scrutiny on eventual takeoff of the scheme also showed that about 64 applications received by NERC of which it has issued certificate of “No Objection” has not been forwarded to the Discos, who in turn would carry out a due diligence before admitting any vendor to its network.

This on its part is slowing down the process and causing anxiety among electricity consumers who are eagerly waiting to be metered this year. From investigations the scheme may have to wait till first quarter of 2019 before takeoff.

Source: Leadership