Nigeria’s National Electricity Commission (NERC) on Thursday disclosed that all Nigerian homes will have access to prepaid meters by 2020.
NERC chairman James Momoh made the disclosure on Channels Television ‘Sunrise Daily’ show.
“With all the mechanisms we have put in place, I am certain that every Nigerian home that wishes to have prepaid meter can have it by 2020,” Momoh said.
Current Nigeria government claim it is supplying 7000 megawatts of electricity generation, having improved it from 3000 where it was in 2015.
However, other African countries boast of better electricity supply than Nigeria. South Africa, which has 56 million population compared to Nigeria’s 180 million has a total domestic electricity generation capacity of 51,309 megawatts.
Momoh stated that the current Muhammadu Buhari led government since 2015 had been working on providing Nigerians with stable and affordable electricity.
“Thanks to president Buhari who has worked to make a big change in Nigeria to improve our quality of service, because money is now being invested rightly to make sure power is available,”
He also stated that other African countries had become envious of Nigeria due to monetary investments by the Buhari government.
“We want to ensure that the customers have the power supply that is affordable, accessible to them and available at all times.”
He, however, called for patience from Nigerians on the delivery of the prepaid meter as “This is not trivial, this is not easy in a growing economy like Nigeria, but we have to provide power to Nigerians.”
Although, some members of the Nigerian public had blamed the government for instability in the electric power supply, but the NERC boss said the responsibility of circulating power lies in the hands of distribution companies.
He said, “The reliability and affordability of power have been paid for. Supply is done through a designed chain through the distribution company.”
Momoh assured Nigerians that the government have placed guidelines to ensure supply of quality electricity irrespective of social status.
“We at NERC enforce rules and regulations to ensure that the power you receive is of high quality and it is available to all customers whether you are rich or you are poor. We are doing all things necessary for power to be available,” Momoh said.
