Metering gap: Manufacturer advocates zero percent loan rate

As Nigeria battles 4.1 million meters deficit, one of the local manufacturers of the meters in Nigeria, Mr Kola Balogun, has called for a zero percent loan rate to sustain the business Balogun, who spoke over the weekend, noted that funding remained one of the challenges threatening the survival of the local manufacturing of meters in Nigeria.
He said with a zero loan rate, local meters manufacturers would have the capacity to produce the commodity in the large quantity, saying that his comanufacturers have provided jobs for the unemployed youths.
It is estimated that about 299bn is required to bridge the metering gap in the country.
Balogun, who is also the Chairman of Momas Electricity Meters Manufacturing Company Limited, said: “ Well, it has dawned on us now that the issue of policy funding is a clear understanding of every player in the sector and I believe very soon, the government will inject some funds into the sector to drive metering, extremely to ease the entire consumers’ pressure and at the same time enhance collection efficiency on the part of the Discos.
“The distribution companies are now ready to patronize local manufacturers but the funding is the major challenge which I think very soon, that would be things of past.
“It is now left for we, the local manufacturers to sit down and agree on the best way to deploy the meters and at the same time ensure that the meters comply to a certain level of standard and perhaps, we should have a narrow type of meter requirements not an open ended type of meters we have now”.
On the quality of the meters made in Nigeria, he said: “The meters are all standard.
You know why I said so? I said so because there is a body called NEMSA in the country whose responsibility is to regulate standardization of meters and every meter supposed to pass through the agency before it goes to consumer’s premises”.
On the preference for the foreign meters, Balogun said: “Well, for Discos to believe in the foreign type of meters, it is all about mindset that the foreign meters are better than local meters, which to me is not true.
“ Because it is the same technology, the same thinking, it is the same components we all sourced from different parts of the world.
So in terms of quality, Nigerian meters might even be better than Chinese meters.
“Secondly, the incentive given by the Chinese government to ensure that all manufacturing factories in China are export-based is so huge that our government needs to wake up and see that exporting is like a competition by all the countries, that we must encourage every domestic industry to produce for the domestic need and at the same time, export”.

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