By Oke Peter
Nigerian Minister of Power, Engineer Sale Mamman says electricity distribution companies will soon begin the installation of four million free prepaid metres across the country.
While speaking to newsmen, on Wednesday, after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the minister said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had disbursed N123 billion to the DisCos to boost the distribution of more metres.
Mamman said the government is almost getting through with the distribution of its initial one million metres, tagged phase zero, to electricity consumers.
According to him, the distribution of the four million metres is tagged phase one.
“It’s ongoing; we are almost rounding off. We’re have almost finished with phase zero. We are now going into phase one of the distribution of the metres, that is the remaining four million the Central Bank promised augment with,” Mamman said.
“The first set is one million. We’re about to finish with that, but you know, it’s not the target. One million is very negligible compared to the demand of Nigerians.
“We are improving. Power generation has improved, you can see, I don’t have to tell you. We are moving from 3000 megawatts, today we are generating up up to 5000 megawatts or over that, so it is a great improvement.
“So, the more we replace some obsolete and outdated equipment, the more we improve the supply of electricity.
“Unless the metres are sufficient, we will not know which and where to push 24 hours supplies because there are some people who are ready for 24 hours and there are those who are not ready for 24 hours supply of light.”
The minister added that the government is committed to closing the huge metering gap in the country.
