Facts have emerged that the Nigerian government once again raised the electricity tariff in the country.
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, gave approval for the hike, with effect from January 1, 2021. The increase varies, based on different consumer classes.
The NERC announced the tariff hike in its December 2020 minor review of the Multi-Year Tariff Order and Minimum Remittance Order.
the new Chairman of NERC, Sanusi Garba, signed MYTO order containing the latest tariff hike, Order NERC/225/2020, which supersedes the previous Order NERC/2028/2020.
Justifying the latest tariff hike, NERC said it considered the 14.9 percent inflation rate rise in November 2020 and foreign exchange of N379.4/$1 as of December 29, 2020.
Other reasons were available generation capacity, the United States inflation rate of 1.22 percent and the Capital Expenditure of the power firms before the tariff was raised.
The revised Service-Based Tariff (SBT) also saw increase in the rates payable by all classes of electricity users unlike the one of November 2020, that exempted low power getters.
This is effective till June 2021 while a Cost Reflective Tariff (CRT) expected to raise the new cost higher will be activated from June to December 2021, the NERC Order revealed.
NERC had raised tariff for the DisCos in September but that drew widespread condemnation from customers and the organised labour, which forced the federal government to suspend it while the parties engaged in discussions.
The suspended tariff was eventually implemented in November 2020, with some discounts given for customers who get 12 hours and above power supply daily.
