Kaduna Electric has announced that its customers in its franchise covering Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi states will continue to pay the current rates despite the new tariff order.
The power distribution company in a statement by Abdulazeez Abdullahi, its Head, Corporate Communications rules out adjustment in the tariff rates being paid currently by its customers.
He said customers should note that the new tariff order contains two components; the appropriate cost-reflective tariff that Distribution Companies (Discos) should have charged customers in the light of prevailing economic conditions and the Allowed Tariff, which is the amount Discos are allowed to charge their customers based on the government’s policy to continue with the tariff subsidy regime, stating that tariff is expected to rise when the federal government ends the subsidy regime.
“Given this, we shall continue to charge both our postpaid and prepaid customers under our franchise states the Allowed Tariff which is the subsidised current tariff rate they have been paying”.
“We urge our customers to ensure they settle their bills on time and in full to avoid disconnection and to enable us to settle our market invoices and improve service delivery”, he said in the statement.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission on Wednesday published new tariff rates by some discos on its website.
The NERC boss speaking about the new tariff review said: “I want to correct the impression that for one year we haven’t had any review. The reality is that the reviews have been done but what happened is what you pay as a customer is a blend of regulation and and policy.
“If we have determined that you should be paying N150 and the Federal Government says you should pay N60 and that it will pay the difference, what it means is that the government would provide the money.
“And that in the current tariff order that is posted on our website, you will see this is what you should pay, and what the government says you should pay, and the government will provide the difference except there is the change of the government policy.
“For the first time we mandated all the Discos to provide five-year capital investment plans, and we reviewed it for prudence and efficiency, and we made sure that all these investments are targeted towards improving service.
“We have our projection on what will be required if the government does not pay a tariff, and it will be N1.6trn to fund electricity, and that is 30bn a month. One of the new things in tariff order is, and to avoid rate shock, we will now be doing the minor tariff review very frequently, like every month’’.
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