The Eligible Customer policy introduced by the Federal Government in the power sector will lead to a 14 per cent increase in the electricity tariff payable by residential consumers across the country, power distribution companies have said.
In July this year, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said in order to accelerate power supply to industries and heavy consumers, the Federal Government had introduced Eligible Customer policy, pursuant to powers conferred by Section 27 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act.
He explained that the policy was to enable heavy consumers using at least two megawatts of electricity to invest in the provision of the equipment and take power directly from generating companies that had the power.
Fashola, who observed that power distributors initially resisted the policy, said they later reluctantly endorsed it.
But in one of their latest documents on Nigeria’s power sector and the eligible customer policy, which was made available to our correspondent in Abuja by the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, the Discos said they had no issue with the declaration by the government, but stressed that the policy would warrant a significant increase in residential tariff.
Residential customers constitute the highest number of power users in Nigeria and their tariff is subsidised by the funds generated from heavy customers.
The Discos said, “The removal of customers that are designated as ‘eligible customers’ means that the premium customers that currently cross-subsidise the largest residential customer class can be removed from the pool of Discos’ customers, thereby resulting in a gap in revenue that will result in a significant tariff increase, currently estimated at 14 per cent.”
They also stated, “While we recognise that the minister has a right to declare eligible customers, we doubt that he has a right to further take money out of our customers’ pockets, with the potential tariff hike that will occur, as the designated eligible customers leave the pool of Disco customers.”
The power firms said in addition to the associated potential increase in the cost of energy to the customers, the reduction in the Discos’ revenue would jeopardise any plans for improvement in the delivery of service.