Hotel Owners Warn Abuja Disco against New Electricity Tariff 

Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja

The Hotel Owners Forum of Abuja (HOFA) has opposed the proposed move by the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) to increase electricity tariff. 

The owners voiced their opposition recently at the scheduled DisCos rate review hearing called by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

HOFA President, Mrs Funmi Kassim, said the new tariff would spell doom for the hospitality industry and do nothing but bring their businesses down. 

The AEDC said the plan to increase tariffs was due to the fluctuating exchange rate in the country which now stood at about N792 to a dollar.

During the hearing on the proposed average tariff build up, the Managing Director of AEDC, Adeoya Fadebiyi, said in light of current reality the DisCO would charge N150.43/ Kwh electricity tariff in order to be able to collect its revenue required.

Kassim however disagreed with the upward review, which she said would not augur well for the hotel owners.

 “If you have to increase this tariff, it will run so many hotels in Abuja down. We talked about carpet and so many other things that we mentioned here. I know there is a mandate as regards the carpet but is AEDC following the mandate? We were told that if we are on Band A we are to pay more so that we can get more power but are we getting it? We are supposed to have 20 hours of electricity per day but we don’t get up that per day. A lot of us run our hotels on generators,” Kassim said. 

Also the Chairman Network for Electric Consumers Advocacy of Nigeria (NECAN), Chief Temilola Akingbogun, said electricity is taking almost 35- 40 per cent of the cost of running the hotel in Nigeria aside from other cost centres. 

“This same thing applies to manufacturing which is why manufacturers have left Nigeria. So, if we continue to allow the cost of our business in Nigeria to be so high, the future will be very doom for tourism and all our potential will be wasted,” he said.