By Igbawase Ukumba
The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has exempted villages within its operational territory from paying the new electricity tariff introduced by the company recently.
The Managing Director of the company, Ernest Mupwaya, who disclosed this Friday at a Customer Engagement on Tariff Review in Lafia, explained that the AEDC was not increasing tariff in the villages because villagers consume less of the product and are low income earners.
The AEDC Managing Director, who was represented at the event by Abimbola Odubiyi, however said that AEDC was going to spend over N43 billion on new projects earmarked for execution in its territory.
He added that the company has so far spent over N30 billion on the provision of services since the takeover of the distribution of electricity.
According to him, “The company plans to procure about 2,500 transformers for installation in the next four years. The AEDC is working together with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to complete the Akurba Electricity Substation project in order to improve on the power supply in Nasarawa State.
“In the course of the takeover, the company was able to buy vehicles and transformers, provide metres on transformers. But there are still some transformers that are yet to be metred hence we need more metres to correct the shortfall.
“We want to connect more people and increase in our service delivery but the price of electricity we purchase from the generating company stands at 134 per cent, whereas we sell same to our customers at 16 per cent hence the need for the AEDC to raise its tariff in order to meet up with the cropping challenge.”
