By Kelechi Udude

The Federal Government of Nigeria has told electricity distribution companies to resume the Metre Assets Providers (MAP) programme, a system that requires consumers to pay for the metres issued to them.

The programme was stopped by the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP), an intervention programme introduced in 2020 by the Federal Government under the office of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo, through which some consumers were issued free electricity metres.

NMMP was designed to bridge the wide metering gap in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).

Earlier reports said MAP had barely reached 400, 000 homes in 2020, while FG’s NMMP intervention in Phase 0 reached about 800,000 homes.

Given Nigeria’s over 200 million population and the mindless corruption associated with billing system, most Nigerians are desperately in need of electricity pre-paid metres.

The Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Garuba Sanusi, was quoted last week as saying that Phase 1 of the Federal Government’s NMMP was billed to begin in August, and as a result, DisCos had been ordered to resume and speed up on the MAP.

“By the end of August, metres from local manufacturers will be deployed by the DisCos. As a result, DisCos have been ordered to re-open the MAP, and customers are advised to take advantage of the window to purchase theirs if they cannot wait for the free metres,” he said.

According to him, “45 local metre manufacturers were currently jostling to be signed under FG’s metre providers’ programme.”

Sanusi also said that bids had already been submitted by the 45 manufacturers and that the selection process had begun.

As he puts it: “Names of winners of the bid rounds will be announced as soon as the process is completed. “Phase 1 of the NMMP targets four million households