Federal High Court Stops Hike In Electricity Tariff

Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos thursday again stopped the attempt by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) to go ahead with its plans to effect a hike in electricity tariff across the country.

This was consequent upon the striking out a preliminary objection filed by NERC challenging a suit filed by a lawyer, Toluwani Yemi Adebiyi, against the proposed hike in electricity tariff across the country.

The judge equally struck out an application seeking to discharge an order of court restraining NERC in concert with electricity distribution companies from increasing electricity tariff pending the determination of the suit.

Adebiyi, in the suit, is seeking an order restraining NERC from implementing any upward review of electricity tariff without a meaningful and significant improvement in power supply at least for 18 hours in a day in most communities in the country.

But NERC filed a preliminary objection challenging the locus standi of the lawyer to file the suit. The commission had also argued that the suit disclosed no reasonable cause of action, and that the applicant failed to comply with relevant provisions of the law, as the suit was wrongly instituted.

Also, in the motion to set aside the interim order against electricity hike, NERC had equally argued that the lawyer misrepresented facts before the court, and misled the court to grant same.

In his ruling, Justice Idris, who first dealt with the preliminary objection, held that from the processes before him, the defendant (NERC) failed to comply with the mandatory provision of Order 29 Rule 4 of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules to the effect that such objection must be filed within 21 days after service.

The judge disagreed with NERC’s counsel that the provision was discretionary, adding that the operating word “Shall” makes it mandatory for the court.

“The objection is incompetent and it is hereby struck out having been filed outside the 21 days stipulated by Order 29 Rule 4,” Justice Idris ruled.

On motion to discharge the interim order, the judge equally held that it was not filed within seven days as stipulated by Order 26 Rule 11, and no order for extension of time was sought.

The development, according to the judge, equally rendered the motion incompetent, and accordingly struck it out.

“The ex-parte order of this court restraining hike in electricity tariff is valid and still subsisting,” Justice Idris held. Meanwhile, the management of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) has announced that it is planning to increase electricity tariff by 77 per cent.

The company said its plan is to increase the electricity tariff by that percentage in a gradual process over a period of ten years.
The Head Customers Service, PHED Headquarters, Dr. Godwin Orovwiroro, made the disclosure yesterday in Calabar during a one-day public consultation on tariff review.

Orovwiroro said the plan of the PHED is to increase electricity tariff to its customers every two years in five instalments.

He said at the conclusion of the process, it is believed that the tariff would stabilise and customers would begin to pay less.
“There will be initial rise in tariff but when more operators come into the business it will likely crash.

“What you will lose in the first two years, you will actually recover in a few years because then there will be competition and the tariff regime will either come down or stabilise,” Orovwiroro said.

He said energy generation was influenced by the macro economic factors.

Orovwiroro stated that some of the challenges facing the distribution company include vandalism, energy theft, illegal connections and obsolete equipment.

He said some suspects caught perpetuating some of these economic crimes were being arrested and prosecuted.

Orovwiroro said the company has undertaken some measures to reposition its operations in order to serve the consumers better.

“We have started enumeration of all our customers and to key them into a data base so that we can the actual number of customers we have.

“We have designed a new metering system where a customer can read his meter on his own and detect if there is any anomaly.

“We also have a revenue protection and loss reduction programme. All these are being designed to provide efficient services to our customers, “he stated.

At the interactive session, some customers including, Mr. Aniefiok John observed that many customers in Calabar pay for energy not consumed as a result of fixed charges by the company.

“In my area, at Parliamentary, our transformer was bad and we had no light for 18 months.

“When the state government gave us transformer and I went to recharge my pre-paid meter, I discovered that I was billed for the period I did not consume energy,” John said.

Orovwiroro said no customer was allowed to pay for energy not consumed and advised those affected to write official complaint so that their monies could be returned.

“If you do not have electricity supply for 15 days, you should not be charged fix charge.

“If you have been charged for the period that your transformer was bad, you can come to our customer care unit so that, we can adjust your meter and remove the excess charge,” he said.

He debunked claims that PHED abandons consumers to their fate whenever electricity transformers get bad, saying that customers were rather always in a hurry contribute money to repair the transformers.

Orovwiroro said consumers have a big share in the operation of the company and urged them to always report any complaint for prompt intervention.

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