The Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN) has stated government’s implementation of the National Mass Meter Manfacturing Programme (NMMP) Phase II World Bank-funded supply of 1.2million smart energy meters may displace local meter manufacturers and assemblers.

Expressing these concerns in a statement issued over the weekend, the Director General of the Association, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, described the advertised financial requirements, and the technical specifications by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), as ‘outrageously stringent’ and skewed against local manufacturers; thereby negating the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) guidelines for the implementation of NMMP.

He added that as a federal government intervention in power sector to accelerate energy meter supply in the country to bridge the metering gap, the programme should be implemented to be in sync with the nation’s  overall national economic development objectives.

“We warn that this portends grave danger for the power sector as we may be witnessing a repeat of the ugly scenario in 2012 when local manufacturers were sidelined in the meter supply, and the nation was greeted with supply of sub-standard meters, supplied by the foreign companies that were awarded the contract that were later removed from the network.

“The position of the TCN that installation will provide employment opportunities to Nigerians will completely pale into insignificance when compared with a ratio of 1 to 10 jobs that will be created if local manufacturers are included in the scheme,” he argued.

Ajayi added that, in keeping with the Federal Government’s backward integration policy and the advent of the NMMP intervention, local manufacturers had made huge investments in expansion of manufacturing capacities, trained and promoted highly skilled workforce to enable them meet the demands of the power sector as envisaged in the NESI.

Besides, he argued, they had also deployed and installed a total number of 611,231 energy meters across the country between January 2019, till 31st January, 2021, under the Meter Assets Provider (MAP) initiative of the federal government; and another 1million energy meters across the country under the phase zero of the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP).

The  LCCI’s DG therefore expressed regrets at ‘the seeming intentional denial of the local manufacturers’; adding that it does not take into cognizance the sterling performances of the nascent local manufacturing, in this area.