By Chris Ochayi

ABUJA— The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission, NERC, has threatened to sanction the Distribution Companies, DISCOs, over their failure to implement the Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation, CAPMI. The NERC, in a statement in Abuja, yesterday, vowed that it will embark on enforcement for non-compliance.

According to the statement, “the commission has given the distribution companies a seven-day ultimatum to show cause why action should not be taken and sanction meted on them for non-compliance, stemming from violation of the provisions of the licence terms and conditions.

This is contained in a letter to the defaulting utilities, namely Port Harcourt, Abuja, Yola and Enugu distribution companies. Others are Ibadan, Ikeja, Eko and Benin.

The warning read: “The commission considers your actions as manifest and flagrant breaches and, therefore, requires you to show cause in writing within seven days from the date hereon, why enforcement should not be commenced against you and sanctions meted accordingly for non-compliance with the terms and conditions of the license granted you and the order on Credited Advance Payment for Metering Implementation.”

The order introducing the CAPMI scheme became effective May 14, 2013, in which NERC directed that the scheme should commence and be implemented at the same time in all the distribution companies. Furthermore, the discos were to redeploy meters under the scheme to willing customers, including the installation of same within 45 days from the date of the payment by any customer.

In the letter to the Discos, NERC noted that it had been observed from public consultation and monitoring exercises carried out by the commission to ascertain the implementation level, that the discos either failed or neglected to fully implement the CAPMI scheme.

Condition 2(1) of the terms and conditions of the licence granted the discos provides as follows: “The licencee shall comply with the conditions of this licence and the requirements of the licenced  business as set out in the act and regulations approved by the commission in accordance with the commission’s statutory duty to monitor all licencees.”

They also have been found to be collecting money from customers for credit meters not minding whether they opted for the scheme, including not publicising the scheme thus giving misleading information to customers.