Prepaid meter
A
member of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Power, Mrs. Abike
Dabiri-Erewa, has urged the new managements of all electricity
distribution companies to patronise local meter manufacturers in the
spirit of the local content initiative.
She made the call during a recent
facility tour of Momas Meter Manufacturing Company Limited, an
indigenous pre-paid meter concern.
She said, in statement on Wednesday,
there was no need for the DisCos to be importing meters into the
country, adding that locally produced meters were standard enough for
the power sector’s consumption.
Dabiri-Erewa said, “I was shocked when I
saw all the equipment at MEMCOL meter manufacturing company in Nigeria.
I don’t believe that we can have this kind of facility and
sophisticated equipment in Nigeria and we are still complaining about
metering challenges.
“Despite the local companies’ strive to
manufacture energy meters, we still go ahead to import meters; this is
very bad for our system. I was amazed with what I saw. It will be a big
shame if we do not make use of what I saw there as regard meter
manufactured in our own country.”
The lawmaker decried the lack of
patronage of indigenous meters and promised to discuss with the other
members of the committee on power on how to boost the patronage of local
meters in the country.
She enjoined all the DisCos to ensure
that all their customers were metered to curb the practice of estimated
billing that had been a big challenge to electricity consumers in the
country.
He said, “We are going to invite the
DisCo owners, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Ministry
of Power and other stakeholders in order to know why local manufacturers
are not being patronised.
“Nigeria deserves better electricity
service and we as parliamentarians will get to the root of the challenge
in the sector. There is the need for us to give a deadline to all
DisCos on the installation of pre-paid meters to all electricity
customers in the country, but we gathered that most new owners are
facing challenges of finance and are actually cash-crunched.”
The Chairman, Momas Meter, Mr. Kola
Balogun, also decried the poor patronage of locally-made electricity
meters by the government agencies.
“Indigenous manufacturers do not get
enough patronage from government ministries and that is why our economy
is not growing,” he said.
According to him, the revolution in telecommunications can be sustained in Nigeria through indigenous innovations.
He said, “The story of poor patronage is
still the same in meter manufacturing where foreign firms are better
patronised and recognised by government agencies. I can confidently say
that we (the local manufacturers) of meters can meet the country’s
supply needs, if patronised.”
Balogun stressed that employment
opportunities would triple if local manufacturers got more support from
governments at all levels.
He said that the local content policy of the government would not succeed if home-made innovations were not adequately utilised
He said that Nigeria’s power sector
reforms would be meaningless if more considerations were not given to
local manufacturers of electricity equipment.
Balogun said that access to credit would
boost the activities of indigenous manufacturers in the power and
telecommunications sectors.
“Nigeria has reached a stage where it is
not supposed to be importing meters. In our company alone, we have a
production capacity of 500,000 to one million meters a month,” he added.
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