Civil Society Organisations, CSOs, in Borno State have implored the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, to exempt Borno State from the payment of the newly hiked electricity tariff.
While speaking to newsmen in Maiduguri on Tuesday, April 9, the network of the CSOs said the exemption is necessary, considering the state’s status of recovering from the rubbles of Boko Haram insurgency.
The Executive Director of the network of CSOs in the state, Bulama Abiso, said: “It came to us as a great shock, the recent announcement by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission on the increase in electricity tariff without putting into account the current predicaments faced by the people of Borno State.”
He went further: “We are appealing to the Federal Government, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Generation Companies, Transmission Companies of Nigeria, the Borno State Government and all other relevant stakeholders to support the reversal of this anti-people policy, considering the current recovery status of the state.”
The CSOs expressed dismay over what they described as the distribution of February and March electricity bills to households without provision of electricity by the Yola Electricity Distribution Company.
“This concern is affecting every household on the estimated billing system occasioned by abrupt disruption of free installation of the metering systems that ought to have been distributed but are now alleged to be sold at exorbitant prices.
“Consequently, we are requesting that YEDC to resumes the free distribution and installation of the metering system to every household in Borno state,” Abiso said.
The CSOs called on the YEDC to enhance its distribution capacity to sufficiently meet the demands of the Maiduguri metropolis.
