The Federal Government has issued fresh licences to 20 new local meter manufacturers in preparation for the next phase of the government’s free four million metering programme.
The development came about eight months after the free metering initiative was meant to begin.
Following the completion of the Phase zero which saw the distribution of one million free metres, the Special Adviser to the President on Infrastructure, Ahmad Zakari, said the next phase would begin in the second quarter of the year as against last year August.
He said, “We have licensed 20 local meter manufacturers to assemble the meters locally, and the programme should start this first quarter… before March.”
According to him, funding has already been secured from the World Bank.
“President Muhammadu Buhari withheld some funding that was available from the World Bank for a short period to allow us to restructure the Discos and we have a World Bank facility that will fund another 1.25 million metres.
“So, what I would say is we know the gap when we started was about 9.8 million metres. One million has been done during the first phase of the National Mass Metering Programme.
“Another four million will be done by the second phase, which should commence shortly. Then another one million – funding has been secured and procurement will commence [later],” he said when asked on Channels Television, Sunrise Daily.
Zakari revealed that the meter manufacturing process was being supervised by the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency.
“Prior to the National Mass Metering Programme, there was no scalable programme on metering in the country. The first phase of the metering programme has distributed one million meters.
“We’ve subsequently concluded the process for another four million meters that are all going to local manufacturers,” he said.
The Phase One of the metering programme scheduled to commence in August 2022, was put on hold due to controversies surrounding some metering companies involved in the Phase Zero. Some of the firms were accused of not supplying the correct number of meters despite receiving funding from the Federal Government.
