He expressed the hope that the government will consider the relevant steps to take and execute them accordingly and very soon.Chairman, Financial Group of the LCCI, Osita Ede, said that it was time for businesses to switch to alternative power supply like solar.Daniel Dickson-Okezie, an expert in SMEs, noted that the rising cost of electricity in today’s Nigeria is one of the numerous challenges killing businesses. He disclosed that the first challenge is that the ratio of outages to power supply is about 75:25. “When you recharge, you turn around and wonder how on earth and when you consumed the kilowatt you paid for. Those that are still on post-paid bills, their story is so bad.”
To mitigate the high cost, the SMEs expert said he has resorted to renewable energy. For the President of the Calabar Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CALCCIMA), David Etim, when the discos came into being, the issue was that they were to reduce losses but unfortunately, the discos are not really addressing the issue why they came in which is to improve efficiency. He lamented that they are now over-taxing the current paying customers.
“The approach to the business was for them to be able to do that transition for improved energy efficiency that is metering. Being able to monitor their supply lines effectively to ensure that there’s near zero energy theft or efficiency in the distribution system to build an efficient electricity distribution system. But that has failed.”Etim noted that part of the inefficiencies of the system is that they are not metering enough.
He advised that the situation has become critical and so the Nigerian Electricity regulatory commission (NERC) has to enforce the issue of metering.“If they can go to the World Bank and get money to do metering, let them do it because they need to improve their collection efficiency. Electricity is a volume business. The more people that are on your network, the cheaper the cost; the fewer people, the higher the cost. If we want to bring down the cost of electricity per unit to N200 to N20 per unit, then we have to drive up the connectivity. Their connection rates are more or less flat and then their cost is going up.”
On how businesses can survive the high bills, the CALCCIMA chief suggested that businesses should get more efficient with electricity. “You don’t leave lights on to keep your costs down. You’re conscious of your electricity bills and then you know the idea of investing in alternative sources of power such as solar wind.”
He lamented the cost of capital outlay for solar winds, but added that it would pay off over time “People have to start thinking about off-grid and start to work towards upgrading power. Even the discos will sit up. Let businesses start thinking about energy efficiency now to remain afloat.President Association of Small Business Organisation of Nigeria (ASBON) lamented that it’s extremely difficult for SMEs to thrive and scale under this new electricity tariff, pointing out that what small businesses do mainly is to reduce reliance on energy-intensive machinery to save costs.
“We ration use of power supply only to a few hours a day, thereby reducing our production capacity which has also led to reducing staff and reduction in profit. “We also resorted to using local raw materials for our production business, which is cheaper than imported ones, just to reduce costs imposed by high electricity tariff; and do small and light packaging, just to reduce sales price so that many people can afford our products.”
