The Nigerian government plans to invest N100 billion to import electricity meters as part of the Presidential Meter Initiative program to address the country’s metering gap. Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, revealed this while speaking to broadcasters in Ibadan, Oyo State, highlighting ongoing efforts by President Bola Tinubu’s administration to tackle the metering issue.
“In the PMI, we have made good progress in sourcing the fund for this, and it is going to be by a combination of the federal and state governments.
“Today, we have received, and we have seen about N100bn that will go into the procurement of meters,” he said.
He added that the World Bank decided to support Nigeria with the procurement of almost two million meters in the next two years through the distribution sector recovery program.
He explained that $200 million of the $500 million DISREP fund from the World Bank will be allocated for procuring meters, and this process is well advanced. “We have already issued contract awards for the World Bank funds, and we are now in the stage of importing meters from abroad due to capacity limitations. We can’t rely solely on local sources because importing can be more cost-effective,” he said. He also addressed the increase in the price of single-phased electricity meters, which has risen from around N80,000 to over N120,000.
