NERC orders Ikeja Disco to pay N131.4m fine

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has ordered Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC) to pay N131.4 million fine following the company’s “flagrant breaches” of the credited advance payment on metering initiative (CAPMI) order.

CAPMI is a special initiative of NERC, which permits willing electricity customers to pay for meters with a condition to be supplied within 45 days after payment is made. The customer is thereafter refunded his money over a period of time through a rebate or reductions in the fixed charge component of electricity tariff.

It was introduced following a nationwide study conducted by NERC, which revealed that more than 50 percent of electricity consumers were not metered but were on estimated billings.

The fine imposed on IKEDC was contained in the Commission’s order 141 (Order NERC/141) and issued on September 29, 2015, as a follow up to an earlier Notice of Commencement of Enforcement Action on the Lagos-based Disco alongside 10 others.

NERC further said they had indulged in “manifest and flagrant breaches observed by the Commission” in the implementation of the metering initiative.

“It is hereby ordered that IKEDC shall with immediate effect from the date of this Order, comply with the CAPMI Order and forward evidence of full compliance to the Commission within two weeks,” the order stated.

“IKEDC shall pay an administrative fine of N250 per minute of every hour of the day for a period of one year from September 29, 2014, to September 28, 2015, for non-compliance with CAPMI Order, with a moratorium from May 14, 2013, being the date of the CAPMI Order, to September 28, 2014,” it further read.

The electricity distribution company was further ordered to “pay an administrative fine of N500 per minute of every hour of the day where it continues in default of compliance from October 12, 2015 until compliance.”

IKEDC action, according to the Order, violated Section 63 (1) of the Electric Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act 2005, Section 2(1) of Terms and Conditions of its licence as well as the “Commission’s Order on Credited Advance Payment on Metering Initiative CAPMI.”

The fine was subsequently imposed following inability of IKEDC to provide explanation for acting in flagrant disobedience to the EPSR Act 2005, as well as to the terms and conditions of its licence and the failure to respond to the Notice of Commence of Enforcement Action.