The Federal Government yesterday dashed the expectations of
Nigerians on the possible reversal of 45% hike in electricity tariff
made by the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), saying
the decision to hike the tariff was irreversible.
The AUTHORITY recalls that the Senate last February mandated its joint
committee on Labour, Employment, Productivity and Power to carry out a
public hearing after which a motion was moved to that effect by the
Chairman, Committee on Labour, Nazif Suleiman (APC Bauchi North).
The Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, and Acting
Chairman of NERC, Dr Akah made this declaration at a Senate Joint
Committee on Labour and Power during a public hearing session on the
electricity tariff hike.
The Senate had in its resolutions on the motion, aside ordering for
the public hearing, also ordered for reversal of the tariff hike by NERC
which was, however, not complied with.
Explaining his refusal to obey the directive, the NERC boss told the
committee that obeying such directive would have created series of
avoidable setbacks in the sector like a market gap of about N575billion
which would have compounded the initial market gap of N187 billion the
take-off tariff slammed on investors.
Akah said aside that, six generating companies (GENCO) had before the
Senate’s resolution, taken NERC to court over the hike and that they
cannot do final order on reversal of tariff since the process that led
to it was in compliance with Section 76 Sub-section 8 of the Act
guiding the operations of the commission.
In his submission, Mr Fashola said the sector needed the market reflective tariff to survive.
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