Minister Announces 10-Year Payment Plan for Meter Installations

The Minister of Power reveals that payments for electricity meters will be spread over a 10-year period, easing the financial burden on consumers.

Electricity users who receive complimentary prepaid meters have a decade to reimburse the expense, according to Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power.

Contrary to assertions that energy credit would be provided as a refund for customers who purchase meters, Adelabu’s statement argues otherwise.

The minister, who spoke in Ibadan recently, admitted that the expense of meters had escalated and cited funding as a significant obstacle.

Adelabu stated that the meter procurement would be funded by various government initiatives, with customers repaying over a period.

This meter can be funded with an option for customers to pay over a period of time.

He stated that if the government begins purchasing meters, they will distribute them to customers and gradually subtract the payment over a period of ten years. In such an instance, you may not even notice it happening at all.

He elaborated that a purchaser of an energy credit amounting to N5,000 may have a deduction of N100 for the meter issued by the government which is supposedly free.

He suggested that purchasing a N5,000 credit may result in only N100 being deposited into the provided meter. This is our attempt to narrow down the disparity experienced with meters by bringing them in.

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According to Adelabu, N100bn had been collected jointly by the Federal Government and state governments for the acquisition of prepaid electricity meters.

The chairman of the newly-formed Presidential Meeting Council shared that President’s Meter Initiative has been set up to tackle this issue. He himself was made the head of this council, while Mr. President’s SA on Energy serves as its secretary. The goal mandated for them is to attain a yearly procurement and installation rate of at least 2 million meters over five years’ time span.

“We have made significant progress in sourcing funds for this project through the PMI. The procurement of meters will be funded by both federal and state governments, with a total amount of about N100bn received and reviewed today.”

The procurement of nearly two million meters over the next couple of years via the distribution sector recovery programme has been approved by the World Bank in Nigeria, as stated by him.

He announced that he was in the final stages of procuring meters and would use $200m from the DISREP fund, which has a total of $500m.