The nation’s Band A customers pay the lowest prices in West Africa, according to the defense offered by electricity distribution companies (DiSCos) against the recent tariff increase.
“Even the band On Thursday’s episode of Channels Television’s Lunchtime Politics, Sunday Oduntan, the spokesman for the 11 electricity distribution companies in the nation operating under the auspices of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED), stated that the tariffs paid by their customers are the lowest in all of West Africa, despite currently being the highest in Nigeria.
Reiterating his position, the ANED official claimed that because neighboring nations such as Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Benin Republic “pay for it,” their electrical output is higher.
“That is why the people supplying are able to recover their cost,” he said, arguing that the power sector needs funds to invest and improve electricity subsidy.
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“That is why they are able to get enough capital to reinject into the system. So, it is very simple.”
The hike in electricity tariff made headlines earlier in the year when the government said it would stop subsidising power for some customers.
Customers who enjoyed at least 20 hours of daily power supply were categorised into Band A users. While they initially paid N225/kwh, it was reviewed to be about N209.80/kwh.
While the move sparked a backlash from Nigerians, the Federal Government insisted that subsidy on electricity is unsustainable.
“And the journey starts now. That we should do a gradual migration from the subsidy regime to a full cost-reflective regime and we must start with some customers,” the Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu.
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“Whatever consumers pay for, there must be commensurate value for it,” he said, a similar sentiment shared by the ANED spokesman.
“The people in Band A pay more than others because they pay the true cost of electricity in Nigeria which is talking about the cost of production – the landing cost of electricity – cost without subsidy; they are the ones paying without the government subsidizing them,” he said on the show.
“All others, like Band B, are being subsidised by the government for as much as 67 per cent. So, what you pay is not what you are supposed to be paying.”
