By Musa Adamu
Abuja
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has once more clarified that the bulk of Nigerians, constituting about 80 percent of electricity customers, would not experience immediate tariff hike until June this year.
The commission said it became imperative to clear the air to quell the misinterpretation going on that blanket electricity tariff hike would take effect this month across the board.
Briefing news men in Abuja yesterday, the Chairman of the commission, Dr Sam Amadi, said the hike in tariff only affects the commercial and industrial customers only excluding residential customers.
“Let me state upfront, and for the sake of clarity, that NERC has not increased tariff for residential consumers. I need to emphasise this point because it seems lost in the swirl of things. While the scheduled increase will apply to other classes of consumers from 1st January 2015, it will not affect residential consumers until after June 2015,” he said.
He said the decision to grant this moratorium was arrived at after adequate consultations with stakeholders and careful consideration of the imperative to balance the legitimate demand for adequate electricity supply with the need for fair tariff.
He further clarified that the freeze was designed primarily to protect and to promote the interests of the consumers as well as stimulate operators to serve customers better.
He said decided to grant a six-month waiver of the full tariff to the bulk of electricity consumers because the commission strongly believed that it would be unfair to ask them to pay a higher tariff now, given the current levels service delivery and consumer perceptions.
“What NERC has done with the freeze for residential consumers is to creatively use rate-setting as a balancing tool for achieving desired outcome, to grant relief to one set of stakeholders while providing incentives to the other as a means of ensuring adequate and regular power supply and optimal customer service.
“The intention therefore is to give the consumers a break for six months and provide the operators incentives to improve supply and services. To us, this is not a zero sum. Rather, it is ultimate win-win not just for consumers and operators, but also for the electricity sector and for the country as a whole.”
On the accusation that the commission caved in to the pressure from the DISCO to hike tariff, the commission said it was not true because even the DISCOs were unhappy with the phase tariff hike.
