Buhari inflicts more hardship on Nigerians with 50% increase in electricity tariff as new years gift

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has approved over 50% hike in electricity tariff payable by customers of the 11 Distribution Companies, DisCos.

This is coming just two months after it finally implemented a much opposed hike in November 2020.

According to the revised Multi-Year Tariff Order, MYTO signed by the new NERC Chairman, Sanusi Garba, on December 30, 2020, and sighted Tuesday, the new tariff increase took effect on January 1, 2021, and supersedes the previous Order NERC/2028/2020.

In the new Order NERC/225/2020, the Commission says it considered the 14.9% inflation rate in November 2020, the foreign exchange of N379.4/$1 as of December 29, 2020, available generation capacity, US inflation rate of 1.22% and the Capital Expenditure, CAPEX of the power firms to raise the tariff.

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 users and those on estimated bills.

Also Read: Electricity Supply: Distribution Companies increase tariff on November 1

The NERC Order indicates that the new tariff is effective till June 2021 while it is expected to be revised again from July to December 2021,

NERC had raised tariff for the DisCos in September 2020 but the development public condemnation from customers and the organised labour, prompting the Federal Government to suspend it negotiated with the workers.

By November 1, 2020, the suspended tariff was implemented after some discounts were given for customers who get 12 hours and above power supply daily.