By our business editor
The federal government yesterday expressed worry over the slow pace of implementation of the eligible customers policy in the power sector, stressing that two years after the concept was introduced, no customers has fully been signed on to it. The Permanent Secretary (Power), Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Louis Edozien, stated this while speaking at a one-day workshop on eligible customer regulation organised by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in Abuja yesterday. He stated that the policy direction was given as a recipe to the liquidity challenges facing the power sector, but expressed concern that two years after the policy direction was given, it is yet to take off. He said: “This policy direction was given by the minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola in May 2017, the policy direction was straight forward. If you are a customer, a consumer of power and you are a bulk consumer and you are not satisfied with the services you are getting or you are not satisfied with having to generate that power you require yourself, you should be empowered under the policy to buy the power from an existing licensee and have it transmitted and delivered to you.” Expressing concerns over the slow implication, he said, “It is a bit disheartening that two years after that policy direction, not one fully licensed eligible customer is enjoying this regulation. So I have messages for all of you here so that we can from today move forward much more expeditiously to give effect to what the Minister demanded two years ago.” He stated that the situation where government continue to pay for power cannot continue for too long, pointing out that the policy is designed to ensure that the sector takes care of itself. He added that Minister and the Ministry has two important interest in ensuring the full implementation of the policy, which he said are the evacuation of stranded power and creation of liquidity in the market. “You all now familiar with the fact that there is no more generation than consumer are able to take on the grid. The solution to that is to find customers who are not being well served under this particular regulation, to gain access to that stranded power, pick it, pay for it, utilize it for their benefit. If we do this aggressively that 2,000MW of so call stranded generation will evaporate “The second area why the ministry want to see this regulation fully implemented is that in addition to that 2,000 MW the 4,000MW hours per day that is consistently being delivered is not fully paid for. Government through the payment assurance plan is paying the Generation Companies for any shortfall in payment from NBET. “Clearly this is not what we had intended the industry to be, and ultimately government has to exit from that process. So it is policies like this or regulations like this that will ensure that not just the stranded power but also the delivered power is delivered to consumers who are contractually-bound to pay for it and if they don’t pay for it then they don’t enjoy the service. Earlier, the chairman of NERC, Prof. James Momoh, said over 44 interest group have so far indicated willingness to participate in the policy. According to him the 44 participants includes those who have been licensed, those who have already signed on the purchase agreement, those who have already signed on the transmission use of service, distribution use of service those who are already in operations and the potential eligible customers. While expressing optimism that full implementation of the policy will create opportunity for all stakeholders in the industry, Prof Momoh charged all to understand the regulation and take advantage of the opportunity the policy provides. According to him, the policy will open up a new market in the sector. He describe the new market to include the small power producers which are call the eligible customer today, the embedded generation, the meter assets providers.
