THE Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has expressed concern over the impending displacement of local meter manufacturers and assemblers in the downstream of the power sector, in the process of the government’s implementation of the NMMP Phase II World Bank-funded supply of 1.2 million smart energy meters.
A statement by MAN said the advertised financial requirements and the technical specifications by the Transmission Company of Nigeria appeared to be tilted against local manufacturers, as they were outrageously stringent and negated the Central Bank of Nigeria’s guidelines for the implementation of the National Mass Metering Programme.
According to the manufacturers, in keeping with the Federal Government’s backward integration policy and the advent of the NMMP intervention, manufacturers had made huge investments in the expansion of manufacturing capacities, trained and promoted a highly skilled workforce to meet the demands of the power sector as envisaged in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry.
The statement said, “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 substandard meters supplied by the foreign companies that were awarded the contract that was 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.”
MAN further stated that the seeming intentional denial of the local manufacturers did not take into cognisance the sterling performance of the budding local manufacturing, such as the deployment and installation of a total number of 611,231 energy meters across the country between January 2019 till January, 31, 2021.
