Fashola To Nigerians, Be Ready To Pay More For ‘Reliable’ Power

Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, has told Nigerians to brace up for increase in electricity tariff, if “reliable” power supply is what they want.

Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, the former Lagos state governor told Nigerians to demand for the metering of their residents and work places instead of seeking court injunctions.

According to him, the provision of meters will help people “monitor and control” what they consume.

“If we want to experience reliable electricity, we must accept the reality of tariffs and possible upward or downward reviews. We must stop going to court to get injunctions to stop tariff reviews.

“We don’t do so, when exchange rate, inflation and prices of other commodities change. What we must insist on, is the provision of meters, so that we can monitor and control what we consume,” Fashola said

The minister also disclosed that the federal government made an out of court settlement for a N37 billion contract, awarded in 2003, for the supply and installation of three million prepaid meters.

He also said the contract had been reviewed for immediate implementation.

The minister explained that the government had negotiated the judgment to allow it go back to execute the contract.
He also blamed the previous administration for failing to make metering of consumers a compulsory obligation of the electricity distribution companies (DisCos).

“One of the omissions of the privatisation carried out by the last administration was lack of compulsory metering before the privatisation. This is compounded by an inaccurate consumer projection of six million households, without a consumer audit,” he said.

“These are the problems the Buhari government is now trying to fix with the power sector recovery programme.”