Governmentt restates commitment to local meter manufacturing

The Minister of Power, Housing and Works, Babatunde Fashola has restated government commitment to support local meter manufacturing companies in Nigeria through favourable policies.

He said that reasoning and dynamics of the economy would play a key role in the patronage of locally produced meters in the power sector.

Fashola who made the call during a courtesy visit to a meter manufacturing plants, Mojec International in Lagos, said commercial things cannot be done by compulsion.

“I think that commercial things should be done by persuasion, reason and the dynamics of the economy,” Fashola said.

Explaining why power sector players especially Distribution Companies (DISCO)’s and meter manufacturers should embrace persuasion and dynamic of the economy, Fashola said it will make the power sector more competitive in terms of pricing and also competitive in terms of quality for the local market.

When the market is competitive in terms of pricing and quality, the Minister added that it would make more business sense to produce and patronise meters locally.

He expressed delight that there are Nigerian companies that can meet the metering demand in the country but wondered why there is still a huge meter gap in the power sector.

Commenting on the challenges of local meter manufacturers, Managing Director, Mojec International, Chantelle Abdul, identified lack of finance and also being able to provide some kind of vendor financing to off-takers as some of the challenges in the sector.

“One of our critical issues at the moment is lack of access to foreign exchange. A lot of our manufacturing inputs rely on goods abroad. As I mentioned during the minister visit is that my goal as a manufacturer is to produce much of my manufacturing input locally here in Nigeria so that we go as far as producing our chips which is the brain of the meter and all other component that is required.

“There is nothing that stops us from producing the battery that we need, the capacitors that we need. It is sad to say that we don’t have factories that produced those things here in Nigeria,” Chantelle said.