Majority of the 85 Meter Access providers (MAPs) who had rushed to obtain operating licenses for the scheme are now getting stocked following the observed silence of the federal government and the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to make the fund available.
It would be recalled that the idea was hatched by NERC to serve as a way out to the apparent slow delivery of prepaid meters to power consumers by Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos).
By the terms and conditions signed by Discos before assuming control of the power segment, Discos are to mount and activate prepaid meters for consumers’, but experience has shown that Discos either by virtue of paucity of funds or determination to continue milking consumers via estimated billing, have remained adamant in speeding up meter deliveries.
Though statistics show snail speed fixing of prepaid by some Discos, some of them claim faster deliveries but there are not enough evidence to show for that after all.
In an interview with an official of the MAPs in Lagos on Wednesday, he said “Many MAPs are getting tired of accessing the fund and approaching banks for loans will be difficult due to neck-cutting interest rates charged by some banks”.
“Many of us are ready to meter every power consumer in Nigeria within the shortest time possible, but we beginning to notice that the way and manner NERC has structured MAPs emergence and evolving happenstances show that both NERC and Discos may not want the idea to work.
“Part from the fact that getting operating licences are pretty simple, getting takeoff facility and even securing delivery partnerships with Discos are very hard. Some of us are beginning to discover that Discos are not happy for MAPs emergence but they are not ready to make that public.
“As at now, some of the meter manufacturing firms both in Nigeria and abroad we have contacted are calling us daily to place orders, but the challenge now is if you place orders, how are you going to give them out to consumers when some Discos are not ready to do business with you?
