The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, (NERC) has revealed that electricity tariffs will now be increased every six months to adjust to foreign exchange and inflation requirements.
This was disclosed by the NERC Chairman, Sanusi Garba, in Abuja on Wednesday, in response to concerns about rising electricity tariffs in the country.
The Commission also added that the grid failure this week as a result of a trip-off caused by the conductor snap, which started from the 330 Kilo-Volt Ampree (KVA) from the Benin axis as well as vandalism of pipelines that also supply gas to the power plants.
The NERC boss said the policy decision to stop the electricity subsidy is as announced by the Minister of Finance.
“The subsidies have been, at one time as high as N600bn a year, and gradually coming down to about N30billion or so this year”, he further stated.
The NERC boss admitted that there was an adjustment in tariff in February this year, following some economic fundamentals considered by the Commission.
“What happened on February 1, 2022, is a minor review of tariff. It is very clear on our website that every six months we will adjust rates to take care of the foreign exchange component of cost and also inflation”, Garba said.
He warned that Nigeria’s electricity industry can not be operated on life support and that investors should be able to get their return on investment without the government stepping in to provide the required funding, adding that the distribution companies (DisCos) are to inform customers on tariff changes.
On electricity gas supply, he said it had been restored to AFAM-VI gas plant in Port Harcourt, owned by Shell and the NNPC, to improve power generation in Nigeria which has also been affected by gas constraints.
He added that a lot of investments have been done in both generation and transmission to ensure a steady power supply in the country.
“Currently, an investigation is on-going to unravel the cause of the trip-off and we are awaiting the final report,” the regulatory body said, adding that they are working with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to figure out other causes to the grid.
