The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has said that the Federal Government plans to regularise electricity tariffs. He explained that the plan was to address disparities in the current billing system and to encourage investment in the power sector.
He spoke yesterday in Abuja during the public presentation of the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Nigeria Integrated Resource Plan.
Under the current structure, customers in Band B, who enjoy 18 to 17 hours of electricity supply, pay N63 per kilowatt-hour, while those in Band A, with two hours more of supply, pay N209 per kilowatt-hour.
The minister said the government was considering this option over the slow pace of migration to Band A customers, which he said was caused by the alleged reluctance of electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) to make the necessary investments.
According to him, any adjustments to the tariff structure will not exceed the current Band A rate. He stated that the goal was to regularise the tariffs across different bands and ensure a more equitable and sustainable system. Adelabu said: “We’ll look at the tariff again. I’m not saying that we’re going to increase the tariff before I’m misquoted.
We’re going to look at the tariff and see how we can improve upon our modest achievement of last year, not only to ensure that we grow the sector that we need but to also ensure that we’re able to invest more in revamping all these dilapidated infrastructures so that infrastructures that actually carry the kind of reliable electricity that we envisage for the sector.
“We’ll look at it. We thought the migration to Band A would be faster than what we’re having now, but we found out that the DisCos have refused to invest. They have refused to invest in this sector.
Fine, it can be explained why, but a lot of invest ment is required for us to achieve an accelerated migration of lower-band customers into Band-A.
“We’ll look at the other bands, which are B to E. Let’s pull up the bands to A, B, and C, so that we can actually, because the gap between the Band A tariffs and the Band B, Band C, D, and E is just too wide.
It’s just too wide, and the Band B that’s enjoying 18, 17 hours is paying N63 while the one that’s enjoying just 20 hours, just two hours difference of supply, is paying N209.
“So we believe it’s not fair. It is not just, and we must be able to carry out some level of regularization. So this is not a tariff increase. Our tariff will never go beyond what a Band-A is paying. But what we want to do is to regularize the tariff.”
