The Senate has flayed the poor deployment of meters to consumers across the country by the electricity distribution companies despite the release of N33 billion to local firms producing the product.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Senator Gabriel Suswan, expressed this reservation yesterday when his committee paid an oversight visit to the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency (NEMSA) in Abuja.
Speaking after the visit, the ranking Senator and former Governor of Benue State, wondered why the mass meter distribution was poor despite the fact that the apex bank, Central Bank of Nigeria (GBN) had released N33 billion out of the N59 billion set aside for the project.
“About N59billion was set aside by the CBN but the sum of N33bilion has been disbursed already and some meters have been produced even though the deployment has been very poor but that is ongoing.”
Suswan stressed that there is a presidential initiative that saddled the Central Bank of Nigeria with the responsibility of providing money to those who are ready to start meter manufacturing in the country.
He added that: “There is a seed money at the CBN, which they can take at single digit for them to be able to start manufacturing meters, so that the issue of complaining of lack of meters and the issue of estimated billings will be a thing of the past. Many potential manufacturers of meters are already taking advantage of the initiative. There will be a lot of meter manufacturers within the next two years in Nigeria.”
