By Adesuwa Tsan
365Daily – The Minister of Power, Engr. Mamman Sale, has disclosed that there will be a hike in electricity tariff in June 2021.
He added that it will be “insignificant “.
The Minister also clarified thay the tariff for service bands ‘D and E’ consisting of customers being served less than an average of 12 hours of supply per day over a period of one month will not be affected.
In a series of tweets posted late Friday night, April 30, 2021, Sale said the review planned by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) was in accordance with Section 76 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005.
He said President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was aware of the challenges that Nigerians face, which is why it has continued to subsidise the band D and E consumers to pre-September 2020 rates.
He stated: “There is no plan to significantly raise Electricity Tariffs!
“Instead of significant hike in electricity tariff, Nigerians should expect an increase in efficiency in the sector to reduce tariffs while managing headwinds from foreign exchange and inflation.
“The review planned by @NERCNG is in accordance with Section 76 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005.
“The tariff for customers on service bands D & E (customers being served less than an average of 12hrs of supply per day over a period of one month) remains subsidised in line with the policy direction of the Federal Government.”
The Minister continued: “Section 76 of the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005 provides clear guidelines for the periodic review of tariff (based on market data and submissions from licensees).
“The guidelines include the provision that the Commission shall give notice of activities related to tariff.
“The Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) per NERCs regulation obtains inputs from operators in the market every 6 months to perform minor reviews and a major review is required every 5 years.
“Thus, as in January, a minor review will occur in June. Given the timing for the Extraordinary review has also elapsed, a review will occur for consideration in January 2021.”
Sale assured that the Buhari administration remains faithful to the adopted resolutions from the Joint FGN-NLC/TUC Technical Committee on Electricity Tariffs which makes recommendations for “NERC to conduct an extraordinary review of the MYTO to further review factors and align them with current current evolving realities.”
He further conveyed the commitment of the present administration to increasing supplied energy to the grid and implementing the National Mass Metering Programme.
According to him, “more than 500, 000 metres have been delivered to DISCOs in phase 0 of the programme in 5 months” till date, exceeding the progress done for the entire MAP scheme.
The Minister assured that the metering gap will be eliminated during the life of this administration.
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