From Fred Itua, Abuja
THE House of Representatives has urged the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to halt implementation of a new electricity tariff regime today.
The NERC has scheduled today to implement the new tariff regime nationwide.
Last December, the House promised to halt any increment in electricity tariffs across the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
The new tariff regime, however, contravenes the official position of the House of Representatives, which had, mid December 2015, through a motion, directed NERC leadership to halt plans to increase tariff.
Speaking to Daily Sun on why the House failed to prevail on NERC spokesman, Abdulrazak Saad Namdas, blamed the failure on the delay in the submission of the Ad-hoc Committee Report on Power.
“The ad-hoc committee on DISCOS invited NERC and they have submitted all the relevant papers. That was just last week. But the committee has not finished its job. Then the House was on recess. We will take a decision once the report is laid.
“The report will be laid immediately the House resumes; our position still remains that this tariff be suspended until we lay our report.
We cannot sanction them until we lay the report. The House is not in session. You cannot take an action while the House is on recess. It was the change of management at NERC that delayed the submission of the report.”
However, efforts to get the official position of the Senate on why the Red Chamber failed to prevail on NERC to halt the new tariffs, failed.
Calls and text messages put across to the Senate spokesman, Senator Sabi, were not responded to.