The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has deplored the alleged moves to cheat out the local meter manufacturers and assemblers in the second phase of the National Mass Metering Programme (NNMP).
The director general of MAN, Mr Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said in a statement that a plan was afoot to sideline the local firms in the federal government’s implementation process of the NMMP Phase II World Bank funded supply of 1.2 million smart energy meters.
He said there was a need to guard against a re-enactment of the scenario in 2012 when local manufacturers were neglected which resulted in the supply of substandard meters by foreign companies.
“The advertised financial requirements and technical specifications by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) appeared skewed against local manufacturers, as they are outrageously stringent and negate the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines for the implementation of NMMP.
“This is a federal government intervention in the power sector to accelerate energy meter supply in the country to bridge the metering gap and ought to be in sync with our overall national economic development objectives.
“We warn that this portends grave danger for the power sector as we may be witnessing a repeat of the ugly scenario in 2012 when local manufacturers where sidelined in the meter supply and the nation was greeted with supply of substandard meters supplied by the foreign companies that were awarded the contract that were later removed from the network.
“The position of the TCN that installation will provide employment opportunities to Nigerians will completely pale into insignificance when compared with a ratio of 1 to 10 jobs that will be created if local manufacturers are included in the scheme,” he said.
He added: “In keeping with the federal government’s backward integration policy and the advent of the NMMP intervention, manufacturers have made huge investments in expansion of manufacturing capacities and trained highly skilled workforce to meet the demands of the power sector.
“The seeming intentional denial of the local manufacturers does not take into cognizance their sterling performance where they deployed and installed 611,231 energy meters across the country between 2019 and 2021.
“They also did the same for one million energy meters across the country under the phase zero of NMMP.”
Ajayi-Kadir said the subsisting executive order 003 on patronage of made in Nigeria products which gives priority consideration to local businesses should be adhered to.
“We counsel that the excellent constitutional amendment that enlisted power generation and transmission in the concurrent list should be complemented with the liberalisation of the distribution end of the value chain.”
With Vanguard report
