July 2016-June 2021

Summary

This project seeks to improve the relationships between electricity distribution companies (DisCos), consumers, and other key stakeholders by building awareness, communication, and trust between them. SDN has already established a platform for interaction between Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), consumers, and stakeholders through interactive community town hall meetings and a ‘Power Hour’ radio programme. SDN is now building on the success of this work to broaden the geographical scope to consumers living in Edo, Delta, and Rivers States, and engaging with both BEDC and Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED). As well as rolling out the Town Hall meetings between stakeholders and expanding on the Power Hour radio programme, SDN will be surveying consumers’ experience of meters and service quality to feed back to DisCos, and working with DiscCos to improve the transparency of their plans and reduce corruption.

Aims

To reduce corruption in the supply and consumption of electricity through promoting the comprehensive roll-out of metered billing.

Key activities

  • Raise consumer awareness via a programme of radio shows educating consumers, many of whom have no previous experience of centralised energy provision, or what estimated and metered billing is.
  • Raise electricity distribution companies’ awareness by surveying consumers on the progress of the roll out of meters, as a more accurate and fairer way to bill for energy consumption.
  • Build trust in consumers by forming community-based Advocacy Working Groups in Edo and Delta States to protect meters and other BEDC infrastructure from interference.
  • Build trust in electricity distribution companies by working with them to increase the transparency of their meter roll-out, reduce corruption, and improve service quality.
  • Improve communication by bringing consumers, electricity distribution companies, and other stakeholders together in town hall community meetings, broadcasting the ways consumers can contact their electricity distribution companies, and feed back to electricity distribution companies the results of SDN’s engagement with consumers.

Context

Despite the huge oil and gas resources and the revenues generated by this industry, Nigeria has some of the lowest per capita electricity consumption and generation figures globally. In 2017, total installed capacity of electricity infrastructure was thought to be around 6,803 megawatts (MW) – a significant shortage compared to the country’s forecasted longer term needs, expected to be 30,000 MW by 2020 (SERAP, 2017).

The Nigerian electricity sector has faced a number of challenges that make the provision of a stable and affordable power supply across the country difficult. These issues revolve around pricing of electricity consumption, non-payment of bills, indiscriminate billing systems, load mismanagement, theft, corruption, sabotage, and lack of pre-paid meters. As a result, there has been little progress towards a reliable, cost-effective, and customer-friendly power supply to households and businesses, especially in rural communities, across the country. Not only do these inadequacies negatively impact daily life, but also present a sustained hindrance to the growth of businesses, and subsequently, dampens Nigeria’s overall economic growth.

Project results

The project achieved the following results:

  • Radio Programming

The radio programmes have provided a platform through which customers and Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) are able to address issues that foster corruption and impede effective service delivery. Listeners have been able to understand their rights and obligations while the BEDC has also had an opportunity to resolve customer complaints. This has been complemented by SDN’s social media channels such as Twitter where BEDC has also had an opportunity to interact with their customers on a range of important issues such as estimated billing and poor power supply. 

  1. Anti-corruption policies and mechanisms

BEDC has established mechanisms through which customers can send complaints anonymously about incidents of corruption – this has been as a result of SDN’s findings from the Corruption Perception Surveys which have been conducted periodically to measure the level of corruption. Estimated billing is deemed as an enabler of corruption as evidenced in our research and BEDC has started the implementation of the Meter Asset Provider policy to address this. BEDC has also begun the enumeration of its customers to address electricity theft as part of their commitment to reduce corruption.

As a result of the success of the project a continuation – Power Hour 2- was approved by MacArthur Foundation.

Phase 2

Project summary

The project was aimed at reducing corruption in the supply and consumption of electricity through the promotion of the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme and the National Mass Metering Programme (NMMP) to electricity customers in Delta, Edo and Rivers States.  

This project extension sought to establish more transparent interactions between electricity distribution companies (DisCos), consumers and other key stakeholders. In Edo and Delta states, with Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC), we concentrated on the metering gap, and continued promoting transparency and accountability in service delivery. In Rivers, we used our experience with BEDC and previous work with Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED), to replicate the focus on transparent metering as a critical tool for improving service delivery and reducing corruption. To do this, advocacy for the complete metering of electricity customers was scaled up with the aim of reducing corruption associated with estimated billing, through stakeholder engagement, grassroots advocacy and radio programming, building on phase one (Power Hour) of this project.

Project results

The project applied several distinct approaches which were instrumental in achieving the outcomes. Key approaches included regular discussions and dialogues with DisCos, monthly monitoring of and analysis of meter roll-out operations of DisCos, strategic engagement meetings with actors in the value chain (DisCos, security agencies, customers, regulators), extensive use of research findings and participatory monitoring particularly through regular assessment of activities of Community Advocacy Working Groups (CAWGs), radio programmes and interactive town halls. Together these approaches contributed to constructive dialogue, increased meter rollout in target communities and consequently mutual trust and accountability between DisCos and their customers significantly improved.

Achievements:

The baseline of metered customers before the introduction of the MAP scheme by BEDC was 548, 261 while PHED metered 355,205 (NERC,2018 report). Under the NMMP BEDC is mandated to deliver 90,870 meters to customers in its franchise States out of which in Edo and Delta States 40,000 and 22,000 meters have been respectively delivered. PHED has also flagged off the distribution of about 77,000 free pre-paid meters to its customers within its areas of operation. As at the second quarter of 2021  BEDC has metered 20,497 electricity customers in Edo and 11,123 customers in Delta State respectively while PHED also metered about 56,000 customers.  

‘Power Hour’ radio programme reached 3,550,000 people (Delta = 850,000, Edo = 1,200,000, Delta = 1,500,000). This means that good numbers of ‘Power Hour’ radio listeners and the public are better informed about PHED/BEDC meter roll-out plan/strategy.

Town hall meetings were organized to promote constructive dialogue and collaboration between BEDC/PHED and other key stakeholders such as electricity customers, CSOs, NERC, FCCPC, Community Advocacy Working Groups (CAWGs), media, and security agencies. Four  town halls (2 for BEDC States of Delta & Edo, and 2 for PHED State of Rivers) were organized for about 360 key electricity sector actors.

 


Project resources

 

Funder