Electricity consumers in Band B may soon see changes in their tariffs as the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, stated that they are not paying enough compared to the electricity they receive.
Speaking at the Public Presentation of the National Integrated Electricity Policy (NIEP) and Nigeria Integrated Resource Plan (NIRP) in Abuja, the minister noted that there is a significant gap between the charges for Band B, which receives up to 18 hours of electricity, and Band A, which gets a minimum of 20 hours.
He explained that the government initially expected a faster migration of customers from lower bands to Band A. However, this process has been slow due to the reluctance of electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to invest in their networks.
“They have refused to invest in this sector. Fine, it can be explained in a way, but a lot of investment is required for us to achieve an accelerated migration of lower band customers into Band A. It is taking a lot of time.”
“We’re now not looking, okay, what can we do? Let’s even look at other bands, which is B to E. Let’s go now to the bands to A, B, and C, so that we can actually, because the gap between the Band A tariffs and the Band B, Band C, D, and E is just too wide. It’s just too wide. And a Band B that’s enjoying 18, 17 hours is paying N63.
“One that’s enjoying just 20 hours, two hours difference of supply, is paying N209. So we believe it’s not fair. It is not just. And we must be able to carry out some level of regularization.”
He added that this is not tariff increase, because tariff would never go beyond what a Band A is paying.
“But we need to regularize, internal regularization of the tariffs among the existing bands. Try to be fair, it will be just, and it will come with minimal noise because a lot of Band A customers will say, downgrade us to Band B. If Band B can be getting 16, 17 hours. Then they also pay something close.”
“Nobody will come and say, ‘downgrade me to Band B again’. So we are just trying to juxtapose the numbers and also engage. We are not announcing any increase in lower band tariffs yet. If we want to do that, everybody will be carried along. I want to do proper engagement, and we know that it’s a joint sectoral agreement. Not just that, oh, the minister has announced, or the Chairman of NERC has announced. No, it will not happen like that. But we are reviewing the situation. Then, the subsidy implementation.”
