Dousing mounting concerns over another hike in electricity tariffs, the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) Wednesday said it had no plan to increase the current tariffs being paid by consumers.
ANED’s Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Mr. Sunday Oduntan, disclosed this in a telephone interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said the electricity distribution companies (Discos) had not submitted any proposal to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on a tariff increase.
“It is not true that we want to the increase tariff by 200 per cent because we do not have any right to do so.
“When you talk about tariff review or increase, it is the responsibility of a regulator and that work belongs to NERC.
“We should understand how the system works because it is the work of the regulator to decide whether there should be tariff review or not and not Discos,” said the ANED official.
He urged the National Assembly to reconsider the stoppage of the bond provided by government to address the liquidity challenge bedeviling the power sector.
“We are not asking for subsidy but that government should step in and provide a bond,” he said.
Oduntan said that the business of electricity distribution was currently not bankable because no bank would lend the Discos money with the huge deficits on their books.
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