Commissioning Of The 300,000 Capacity Metering Factory

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VP’s Remarks at Commissioning of the 300,000 Capacity Metering Factory, Onna Local Government, Akwa Ibom State.

REMARKS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, VICE PRESIDENT, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, GCON, AT THE COMMISSIONING OF THE 300,000 CAPACITY METERING FACTORY, ONNA LOCAL GOVERNMENT, AKWA IBOM STATE ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2017.

PROTOCOLS

This is an exceedingly important project because clearly, I’m sure that every one of us accepts that perhaps the major obstacle to full economic development in Nigeria is power. We have also identified the fact that a lot of the DisCos are unable to effectively collect their tariffs from consumers because they are unable to afford the cost of metering.

The Federal Government has developed a policy around metering; in the first place, we are going to have independent metering companies and agents. A distribution company, DisCo, does not necessarily have to be a distributor of meters. It has now opened up for anybody to be able to take a batch of consumers and meters.

I think that these are the important policy innovations because it means that there is no restriction on those who can meter consumers. What MSML is doing here is also an important opportunity for agents who want to be metering agents, to set up companies around that and be able to serve whoever they please in the country.

This is also important for other reasons, and just has the Governor has said, the whole idea of serving power easily is the same way you can buy credit for your phones, you can also buy credit for power as well. That is the whole objective of these types of meters in particular because, these are smart meters that will enable any consumer to simply key in a code, once you buy a scratch card and you can have power in your home.

This is an excellent innovation, again it ties into some of what the Akwa Ibom state government is already doing; you already have a generating capacity in the order of 155/153 megawatts of power which means very soon, practically everyone in Akwa Ibom state should have power.

We are excited about this because of the potential that this can go into other parts of the country. We are certainly looking forward to having this company open up other factories in different parts of Nigeria. Lagos, of course, is waiting because there you have a huge number, Kano is also huge and other states. The country has opened up for this kind of enterprise and we are certainly looking forward to a lot more activities.

This is excellent, we are looking at 2.7 million units of meters and that is absolutely fantastic. I don’t know how many jobs that translates to but I’m sure that it would also be substantial for a start.

It is my very special privilege and pleasure to open up this meter manufacturing factory for MSML for the benefit of the people of Akwa Ibom state and all the Nigerian people and to the glory of God.