The Senate through its Committee on Power, expressed dismay on the abysmal performance of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on the mass metering project in the country despite N33.4 billion already released by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Verdict of poor performance slammed on NERC by the committee came from assessment made on the project at an interactive session with NERC officials and representatives of the various Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) at the Senate wing of the National Assembly on Thursday.
The project which targets one million metering of houses across the country between October 2020 and April 2021, as stated by the NERC Chairman, Engineer Sanusi Garba , has only recorded 13% implementation as at 19th of March 2021.
According to him, “while N403, 000 out of the targeted one million meters have been delivered to the various DisCos, only 127, 000 have been installed , representing 13% performance.”
He, however , attributed the poor performance to delay in disbursement of fund, the chunk of which he said was made available to the DisCos in February this year.
“Target performance duration for the project which is phase one , entailing metering of one million houses across the country in reducing the metering deficit of 6.5 million, is six months, that is from October 2020 to April 2021 .
Apparently not impressed by the NERC Chairman’s performance report, the entire members of the committee headed by Senator Gabriel Suswam ( PDP Benue North East), one after the other, lampooned the commission and the DISCOs for poor performance.
