Why NASS intervened in suspension of electricity tariff hike-ANED

The National Assembly initiated the suspension of the proposed reflective electricity tariff charge due to concerns regarding it’s timing and workability plan within the power sector.

This was revealed by the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Barr. Sunday Oduntan while reacting to a report by a national daily that wrongly claimed the DisCos lobbied for the postponement.

“I am sure that right now, several attempts at justifying this conspiracy theory are being cooked up but what the journalist that wrote the story is actually insinuating is that the leadership of the National Assembly can easily be manipulated by anyone or group of people.

“The members of the National Assembly are representatives of the people. Based on the feedback they have been getting from their constituents mainly around the difficult financial realities, they called for a meeting which we attended and during the meeting, they laid out their concerns,” Oduntan said.

He continued: “DisCos have spent the last couple of weeks carrying out massive sensitizations across different platforms preparing their customers for the new service reflective tariff as instructed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC). DisCos have also been at the forefront of the call for a reviewed tariff for years.

“Over the weekend, we had to publicly voice out concerns about an instruction from our regulator which we felt will make our task of winning public confidence more difficult because we have committed ourselves to removing obstacles that will stand against the success of the take-off date.

“It is therefore extremely disingenuous for someone to come and suggest that on the eve of this coming to fruition, we will now be the ones to initiate its postponement,” he added.

It would be recalled that July 1, 2020 had been slated as the commencement date for a new service delivery based tariff regime.

Based on the recommendation of the NASS leadership, the new regime is expected to take an effect from the first quarter of 2021.