Soon, prepaid meters distributed to electricity users by the Office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo under the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) would be retrieved.
To close the metering gap, the Federal Government launched the NMMP scheme in 2020, intending to distribute six million free prepaid meters nationwide.
The initiative, which has distributed roughly a million in phases 0 and 1, may have faced some difficulties since some beneficiaries were reported to be having technical issues with the meters.
In addition to the customers’ issues with broken meters, it was discovered that some customers were purposefully committing energy theft and meter bypass.
Felix Ofulue, a spokesman for Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, reports incidents of dormant prepaid meters.
He claims that just 30,000 of the 106 000 meters the Federal Government provided to the company have been turned on.
He lamented that some of its clients had been discovered evading the free prepaid meters.
“Yes, we have cases of meters that have never been recharged since installation. Nigerians have been screaming that DisCos did not give them prepaid meters. Now that some meters have been distributed, we still have cases of consumers bypassing those meters and using electricity for free,” Ofulue said.
However, Busolami Tunwase, a spokesman for the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, stated that no decision had been made on removing the prepaid meters.
She claims that because the names and addresses of the customers have already been programmed into the meters, they cannot be returned.
It could be challenging to take such a step, Eko Electricity Distribution Company spokesperson Godwin Idemudia remarked.
Phase II of the NMMP is anticipated to start at any point in July and will result in the distribution of four million meters throughout Nigeria.
The spokesperson for the Electricity Consumers Association of Nigeria, Chijioke James, said DisCos should not withdraw meters from consumers.
“It is not good to withdraw metres from consumers, rather DisCos must make sure all consumers are metered nationwide according to the presidential directive to that effect”, he said.
