 Welcome back. It's still the breakfast in PlusTV Africa. Well, the socioeconomic rights and accountability project Nigerian Suicide Organization is the president of the country, Bahama Dabuhari, to direct the Minister of Pa, Mr. Gordy Jedi Alba, and the chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, Professor James Momo, to immediately reverse the unlawful, what he calls the unlawful, unjust and unreasonable increase in the electricity tariff which reportedly reportedly occurred in December 2022. Now, Serap also urged him to quote and share the investigation of the spending of public funds as investments and bailouts by successive governments to electricity distribution companies and the power generating companies since 2005. And the prosecution of cases of corruption and mismanagement. Now, following the reported approval by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, electricity tariffs were increased across the discos in the country in December 2022. Now, several prepaid customers have reportedly confirmed the increase or the increase of both the minister of power and NEC have refused to confirm or deny this situation. We are joining us to look at this and provide analysis for us. George Atomi is a chairman of West Pa and Gas. He joins us via Zoom. Good morning to you, George. And thank you very much for your time. Good morning and happy new year. All right. Same to you, George. Have you noticed that you're paying more for Pa? Personally, I've been complaining at home, saying I don't know what's going on because, I mean, we're not quite much in the house. And by culture, by practice, where I reside, we turn things off, we turn a lot. Sometimes we switch it in top of if there's no one at home as a way of saving the cost. I tell you what, George, I could load, let's say, $5,000, for instance, it can last me a week and some days. And sometime in November, I began to realize, October, I began to realize that loading $20,000, $30,000 a month was not enough. It was not enough. I tell you what, George, I did an experiment, put in $10,000, you know, Ekeja Electric, last week, Sunday, the Sunday before this last Sunday, and it got exhausted on Sunday, which means that $10,000 was finished in a week. I don't know if you've noticed this. And why do you think we're seeing this hush-hush and secret increase in the tariff without going through what we normally know to be the process? Well, let me correct one notion that it's hush-hush and that it's secret. I don't know if it's on this program or somewhere else that I've explained how the tariff system works. The regulator is obliged by law to roll out a tariff structure, a review, which is major. It's done once every five years. And then in between, you have the six monthly minor tariff reviews. This would cater for inflation and things like currency, depreciation, and stuff like that. So it is not a secret. It's on the website. The increases you are talking about is the mito that was rolled out for January 2022 and will take us up to January 2026. That is a five-year major tariff review. It's done because the losses, it must be done. And if they don't do it, then you would have severe consequences for investments in the sector. So that notion that it was secret, it was hush-hush, is not correct at all. Now to the direct question of whether or not there have been tariff increases. There have been tariff increases, but it's differed from disco to disco. If they go electricity, for example, the tariff increase has only affected bands A and B customers. And it's about roughly between 15 and 20 percent increase. Bands C, D, and E are not affected at all. And it varies from disco to disco, depending on the factors that are taken into consideration before the major tariff review is done. So yes, there has been a tariff increase, but it's not across the electricity distribution company. So that's really what the situation is. When I say hush-hush, it's because with this current situation, we don't know what's going on. The discos have not said anything. NEC has not said anything. Nobody in the federal government hasn't said anything about this. Normally, we would hear, though, we're going to increase the tariffs. It's time to be aware of this, get ready. We know the process of the procedure. It's all online. And even I think sometime last year, the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission came out to say that Nigerians should bear with them. They might have to adopt a six-monthly review of the tariffs owing to foreign exchange, you know, shortfalls and inflation as well. Excuse me. So in that vein, would you say that this has been the current situation? There's been some at the needed level of transparency and openness to carry the general public along so we know what is going on? For instance, if I ask you, can you tell me the current rate, per kilo at R? What current tariff? Yeah, I can tell you that. But I must also give you full disclosure. West Pangas is a core investor in a co-electricity distribution company. So thank you very much for that. I know a bit more than perhaps the general public. Yeah, but we will not be being carried along. No information. But I must also concede the points that you are making that perhaps this goes should have sent out notices just as part of customer relations. And I believe if they are listening, they should do that. But then don't let's not get away from the original point we made. And you consider that Nick did tell people that in between these minor reviews, you see this is by law, this actually according to law. If they don't do it, they'll be breaching contracts with members of the value chain. And then the six monthly one is simply to cater, as I said, for things to do with inflation, currency, fluctuations, and so forth and so on. Don't forget that electricity market also operates within the reality of the economy context in Nigeria. Everything is going up. Everything is changing. The most of the materials they use are sourced from abroad. They can get forex at favorable exchange rates. So they go to the market like everybody else to see for forex. And it affects the operations. So if they're going to give you the minimum that's expected of them under the various service bands, then those adjustments must be made to these tariffs, to cater for these things I just talked about. Now, just again, so we can contextualize this discussion. The discourse themselves, once this increase takes place, discourse pay for power too. It's not as if it's just given to them. So the minimum remittance order is also issued with their request discourse to increase their remittances to the market. And anyway, you can meet with that obligation is to ensure that you make collections and you meet with those obligations because there are severe sanctions if you do not meet with those market obligations. So it's not as if power is just given to discourse. And then whether or not they like it, they just consume and not return. You have to return. And we begin to see movements in the electricity market in which discourse has been sanctioned for one reason or the other. It shows you the reality of the and the maturity of the privatization process. New players will come on board. Investments will be made, which is what the sector needs very badly. So all we just want is to ensure that the enabling environment is created so that the well-needed investment in the sector comes in. To be honest with you, as we almost talked, for example, as you know about petroleum subsidies and coal, the government can simply not continue to subsidize these sectors and they've hanced off electricity. I'm sure the Minister of Finance, you recall, said this sometime in 2022 that they have hanced off electricity subsidies and has a reality on the ground. And so what the market will now begin to do is slowly adjust to the reality. Now, what is the corollary to this? Consumers must hold electricity companies to their obligations. You have rights. Consumers have rights. And they must begin to insist the regulator will listen to them and has generally listened to them so that both ways you get value for what you are doing. But always our Nigerians, that if we allow the market to settle down, we hope you get to a point where you will require less of alternative power supply to yourselves. Right now, the average Nigerian self-generates a lot. He has diesel, he has a bifur, he does solar, he does inverter, he does so many things. Ideally, you shouldn't carry all these costs. And if you aggregate your general costs, if you include all these, the rates is for some people is close to 280 Naira per kilowatt hour. And yet the highest band in the Kogi school is about 68 Naira per kilowatt hour. So if Nigerians begin to see that a movement which will create greater efficiency in the industry means an overall reduction in their electricity self-generating costs, then perhaps they'll understand that this is the right way to go. Okay. Because for how long would we be budgeting to have generators, diesel, inverter, solar, all the government? Mr. Tommy, you've fainted a picture of what Nigerians are going through. The multi-year tariff order was touted as by NERC and the industry as something that will then be on for 15 years, a 15-year tariff path with a review, major reviews every five years. You know, why isn't that being adhered to? It is. That's exactly what's going on. Exactly what is going on. 15-year tariff path, five-yearly major reviews and then six-monthly minor reviews. But we saw some reviews last year. That's what I'm saying, six-monthly minor reviews. There's a major one, five years. And that's what NERC just released, June, January 2022 up to 2026. In between, you'll be having minor tariff reviews. In the UK, for example, the minor reviews are every quarter, just so that you cope with the reality. But Mr. Tommy, the UK you're talking about, you pay for what you get. You have power. You pay for what you get. In Nigeria, a lot of people are still on post-paid and they are being ripped by the discourse, ripped, imagined a situation where before this current increase, there are some Nigerians, like myself, I was on a post-paid for some time. And I know people whose annual rent was not up to, or whose monthly light bill, annual light bill, was two times, three times, four times the annual rent. Simply because someone sat somewhere and said, this is what you're going to pay. Now, are these increases justified looking at what Nigerians are going through at the moment? That's not the argument. The argument is there is a business on ground. The business has a path to becoming whole. We're not going to do these things overnight. There's a regulator who ensures that it balance between the interests of investors and the consumers. That's why I said that consumers have rights and they can insist. Post-paid is an era we should be departing. And you know there's a meta rollout that's going on across discourse. To be honest with you, you know there is this estimated bills regulation in place, which actually caps what discourse can charge with regard to estimated bills. And many discourse are finding out. They're actually losing money, estimating people. In many instances, when you actually meter them, you tend to get the correct consumption, because once that estimated cap is applied, whether, no matter what the consumer consumes, you can't go beyond that cap. So it's not even in the interest of discourse to have estimated bills or postpaid meters. But the meta rollout, as you know, is continuing across discourse and will continue. And don't forget meters to have lifespans. There are many meters that were given, God knows, ages ago, which also have to be remitted. So when you look at your metering profile, again if you go on the net website, you see the meter shortfalls across the discourse. You must get to that point where there are sanctions for not doing that. And secondly, you cannot even estimate beyond a certain cap set by the regulator. So it's important that consumers are educated about this. But I go back to the point I made earlier on. If consumers do not want to continue to carry the burden of self-generation, which is phenomenally higher, the complaints I hear most times is about the bills coming from discourse. Nobody's talking about the diesel bill. Diesel is fully regulated. Diesel costs have quadrupled in the last two and a half years. And some people depend more on diesel than on power from the grid. That shouldn't be the case. But why people are willing to live with that reality? And then argue each time there is a modest increase in electricity, just bits me completely. Whereas what we should be doing is get to the point where you don't depend on alternatives. Right now, I would like to make the argument, barring this inexplicable scarcity in petrol and diesel, or in petrol rather, that has driven up the price. I don't want to go into diesel. But for those who use petrol, like myself at home, barring the scarcity we're seeing and then the increase in prices above the pump price, all to buy a liter of petrol at the regulated pump price. For some households, it will be cheaper to go on a generating set than to go with the distribution companies. For instance, Ikeji Electric from where to which I'm a customer. It's not bad right now. No, let me tell you, you're talking about petrol generators. And don't forget your petrol is heavily subsidized. There are arguments that is unsustainable. And in fact, many of your presidential candidates are saying, in fact, the minister just announced that from June this year petrol subsidies will go. Maybe arguments will change. But those who use diesel don't have the same experience. Those who use diesel pay phenomenally higher than for what they pay for green power. Some of them are complaining. Some are complaining that they put on their lights, prepaid, and within a matter of days, what they bought for thousands, tens of thousands is gone. Look, you need to understand how much you consume per kilowatt hour. So for instance, for Ikeji Electric, for instance, with the review now from December, how much are we paying per kilowatt hour? I'm telling you that Ike is only bands A and bands B. The other bands are not affected. Band A is 68 nair and band B is just under 69 after this increase. So you need to understand that no increases to band C, D, and E. So band A being what? Excuse me. Is band A special? Yeah, because you know there was tariff classification. Yes, yes, yes. Even by the regulator. And depending on how many hours of electricity you get, you pay. And those who are willing to pay higher are the ones that are then categorized in a way they may categorize. Some Nigerians to manage their budgets are happy to do 10, 12 hours a day. They just time it for when they want to sleep most of the time out of the house. So they opt to remain at some of the lower bands. Some consume according to, from the, on the higher bands. And that's why it's called service-based tariffs. And it must come with certain minimum number of hours that you get. And that's why I said, and what many discourse or try to do now is to move people from the lower bands to the higher bands so that as you, your fortunes improve with any electricity, you're able to afford it. That's what many of them are doing. That's why I said it's not an increase across board. It is an increase. And if you notice, for example, over the holiday period, you would have noticed that people got sturdier electricity. Yeah. I admit, I admit that, I admit that. Transition is very serious. Yes. But, but, Mr. Thomas, some, some people are saying. Can I just make this point so that you understand? Yes, please, yes, please. Me and you must educate the public here. You, you, you, the reason that's happened is that most of the industries were shut down. So power was diverted for residential offices, which tells you one story that if discourse have power they'll give it to you. Many times people say they're paying for that. So that then brings me to the point, why aren't we getting, now that we've all resumed? Yeah, we're, we're out of time. So please, in just a sentence or two, please. Okay. Yeah. I'm done. I'm done. Okay. So Mr. Thomas, some are saying that from the calculations they're paying as high as 75, 79 Naira per kilowatt. From my calculation, I'm paying around 18 Naira in a residential facility. Yeah. What, what band are you in? And I think it's that, that's, that's, We'll look, we'll look at that some other day. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your time. We'll look at that some, thank you so much for your time. Mr. Judge Itomi, we appreciate you joining us this morning. And that's the size of our package right here on the breakfast. We return tomorrow with more please follow us on social media across our platforms and on YouTube and plus TV Africa. My name is Kofi Bartels. Good morning.