The Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi on Tuesday in Abuja, chided some Distribution Companies (DISCOs) over the poor implementation of the Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation (CAPMI) scheme, Leadership reports.
He said; “The CAPMI scheme has suffered poor implementation in spite of customers’ willingness to make advance payment for meters. Although some customers paid for meters, some DISCOs did not provide meters as expected to those who paid”.
He also said that other distribution companies failed to make adjustments in their billing software to make the mandatory refunds, six months after installation of CAPMI meters.
Amadi said that the commission was proposing to exempt unmetered customers from paying electricity bills due to the alleged reluctance of distribution companies to fully carry out their metering plans. He explained that the proposal followed a recent decision to cap the maximum charges that an electricity distribution company can levy on its unmetered customers.
Amadi said that the decision was aimed at making the Discos to engage in widespread metering of electricity consumers in their networks. He, however, said that the proposal would be subjected to scrutiny by industry operators.
According to him, after a 16-month grace, any Discos who failed to exercise full metering plans would lose revenues from consumers.