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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The House of Representatives has said increase in electricity tariff in the country must be fair and just.
The chairman, House Committee on Power, Victor Nwokolo said this at an investigative hearing organised by the House Joint Committee the Joint Committees on Power, Commerce, National Planning and Economic Development and Delegated Legislation on electricity tariff increase.
Nwokolo stated that though the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission ( NERC) has power to fix tariff, the agency must follow due process.
According to him, “The power of a regulator to approve tariff increase has to be justified by evidence and logic that show that the reviewed tariff is fair and just and apportioned to different customer class according to the real costs of serving them.
“The Electricity Act authorises NERC to allow an operator to recover the costs of electricity supply. But this recovery will be only after the operator has established that it has incurred the costs in a prudent manner. The regulator cannot impose a burden on customers to bear imprudent and unnecessary costs.
“We want everyone here today to assist us with the truth. We want to know the challenges the sector is facing and how we can support. We want to see how responsible each of you has discharged your responsibility under the law and the terms and conditions of your licenses.
“We want to know how customers have been served and protected. We want to know whether the safeguards that the legislature wrote into the law was complied with in the recent approval of tariff review. We want to be able to tell the entire house that the regulator and the minister followed the law and global regulatory practice in approving the tariff review,”.
