Charles Nwaoguji
The Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN) comprising of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (NASME), and the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), has called on President Buhari’s to justify the necessity for this tariff increase at a time when the economy was facing a potentially deep recession and Nigerians are facing increasing hardships, with unemployment rising to over 27 per cent as many factories are threatened with total closure. They noted that the subsidy situation was simply unsustainable and that if allowed to continue, will suffocate the electricity industry as the government no longer has the financial capacity to sustain the increasing subsidy level at a time finance capital investment necessary to extend electricity supply to the over 90 million Nigerians who lack access to the facility.
The Chairman of the OPSN, Hajiya Saratu Iya Aliyu; who stated this when she and her team visited the Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure, recently in Abuja, said that it was therefore necessary to create conditions that will attract private investment in the industry for which cost reflective tariff was inevitable. Saratu Iya Aliyu said that it was however imperative that the confidence of electricity consumers be inspired with assurance that the new tariff regime will lead to significant and sustained improvement in the quality of electricity supply. She advised government to ensure that the new tariff structure remains transparent, with fair charges and ensure that consumers must be able to verify that they are paying only for what they consume. She explained that government must compel Distribution Companies(DisCos) to massively invest in a metering programme that will totally eliminate estimated billing which they (DISCOS) routinely resort to extort money from consumers to boost their revenue and make up for their chronic inefficiencies. The metering programme through the CBN to fund locally made meter manufacturing bulk purchase should be accelerated.