The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company says it has concluded plans with MOJEC International company to procure and install additional 60,000 prepaid meters in its catchment areas.
The Managing Director of AEDC, Mr Ernest Mupwaya said this on Friday in Abuja, while signing the contract for the supply of the meters.
He said that the contract for the supply of the meters was N2.4billion, adding that 48,000 of single phase and 12,000 of three phase meters would be supplied under the programme.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that AEDC had commenced a mass metering project in December 2016 in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Mupwaya said that the installations of the meters would impact significantly on AEDC’s business and the entire electricity value chain.
According to him, the additional 60,000 meters would add up to a total number of 90,000 meters provided so far for its customers in the year 2017.
Mupwaya said that another contract would be signed next week for the purchase of 30,000 more meters.
This, he said, would result in the actualisation of AEDC’s yearly target of 120,000 meters .
He said that the meters would be deployed to areas where the company had carried out enumeration of its customers.
According to him, the installation of the meters will help reduce the losses incurred through under-billing and electricity theft.
He also said that the measure would also bring transparency to the billing process and increase customer confidence and willingness to pay for electricity consumed.
The AEDC boss said that the installation of the meters would also result in improvement in revenue and billing efficiency of the DisCo, this, he said would also have a long term effect on reduction of tariff.
He reiterated that the prepaid meters a being installed free of charge.
He, however, attributed the inability to fully meter its customers at the moment to the limited nature of its finance occasioned by lack of cost reflective tariff in the sector.
Mupwaya appealed to customers to avoid bypassing of meters, adding that AEDC had put in place a robust 24 hours customer complaints and redress mechanism platform .
He said that the company had also provided a 24 hour credit procurement platform using the smart phones and third party vendor platforms.
In her remark, the Chairperson of MOJEC, Mrs Mojisola Abdul said that the company was delighted to partner with AEDC to provide meters to electricity consumers .
She said that MOJEC had an installed capacity to provide 100, 000 meters monthly, and appealed to consumers to support AEDC by cultivating the habit of saving energy.
Mojisola also advised electricity consumers not to be involved in energy theft and pay their electricity bill promptly, which would help in accelerating the provision of meters to more consumers. (NAN)