NASS, Discos Postpone Planned Electricity Tariff Hike Till 2021

The National Assembly leadership and Distribution Companies, on Monday agreed to defer the planned hike of electricity tariff till the first quarter of 2021.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Special Adviser (Media) to President of the Senate, Ola Awoniyi.

The tariff hike was scheduled to kick-off by July 1, against an earlier date which was April 1, 2020.

However, following the controversy surrounding the hike, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, other principal Officers of the two chambers held talks with the Chief Executives of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and Discos.

“The agreement here is that there is not going to be any increase in the tariffs on July 1st,” Lawan said.

Lawan maintained that the timing of the proposed hike was wrong.

He said, “There is too much stress in the lives of Nigerians today and indeed across the world because of the challenges imposed by COVID-19 pandemic and even before then, we had issues that would always make it tough for our people to effectively pay the tariffs,”

Also the Discos admitted that they were not fully prepared for the kickoff of the July 1 date, but said it was essential.

He said, “The Speaker and I, we are going to take appropriate action and meet with the President.

“We are in agreement here that there is no question on the justification of the increase but the time is simply not right and appropriate measures need to be put in place

“So between now and the first quarter of next year, our task will be to work together with you to ensure that we put those blocks in place to support the eventual increase in tariffs.”

He added that, “I’m quite aware that for this year, probably starting from last year, over N600bn was earmarked for this sector to improve.

“The potential increase in the tariffs is definitely something that will be of concern to us in the National Assembly.

“One way or the other, for this business to flourish, for this sector to be appropriately fixed, for it to attract investment, something has to give way, there is no doubt about that.”

Gbajabiamila, according to the statement said that a well intended programme or policy of government could fail if implemented at a wrong time.

He said, “There cannot be a time as bad as this for us to increase anything. Forget about electricity, anything.

” Whereas, even in time of decreasing revenue, we are even reducing the pump price. I don’t know how we can justify an increase in the cost of electricity at this time in Nigeria.

“The good things is that we have agreed that we need to do something about the cost.”

Gbajabiamila further questioned the Discos and the NERC on how the country arrived at the tariffs.

He also questioned the role of the National Assembly on the planned hike and asked the regulator if the President was aware of the hike.

The Discos said if the planned hike was deferred till next year, the government should continue to bear the difference in the present tariff and what was regarded as the ideal tariff.