The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, has strongly come up with revised penalties for electricity customers who are involved in unauthorized supply by either tampering or meter bypass by electricity.
The criminal practice of stealing electrical power is called Electricity theft, although very popular in Nigerian is punishable under the law, it ranges and not limited to, illegal connection, meter bypass, to liaising with a distribution company staff to stay connected to the power grid without offsetting your bills, or bribing same officials.
The review, according to the Commission, was taken after, the several complaints made by the Electricity distribution companies (DISCOs), the commission has authorized Discos to disconnect unauthorized link to the distribution networks.
The DISCOs are therefore authorized to give ‘ back bill’ customers who gain unauthorized access to electricity at the prevailing tariff of the customers for the duration of the unauthorized access, and the DISCOs are to report such cases to the Commission on a monthly basis. This payment of back-bills shall be done by any customer who commits electrical theft, and the individual would also pay for reconnection costs and administrative charges.
Other penalties include:
An attraction of a reconnection cost of 300% of the last authorized recorded monthly consumption of the customer after an initial incident of unauthorized access to electricity by tampering or bypassing a Maximum Demand meter.
An attraction of reconnection cost of 450% of the last authorized recorded monthly consumption of the customer for any subsequent incidents of unauthorized access to electricity, among others.
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