An indigenous meter manufacturing firm, Metering Solutions, says its Onna factory in Akwa Ibom is currently producing about 3.6 million smart meters annually.
Mr Tolu Ogunkolade, General Manager of the firm, disclosed this during an inspection tour of the factory on Thursday.
He revealed that the company which began production in 2016, had demonstrated capacity and technological know-how in its products.
He explained that the aim is to bridge the nation’s metering gap with its meters produced under the best technology in the world.
According to him, the requirement for capacity demonstration in metering is not referenced around assembly operations or what most industry competitors bandy around.
“What constitutes your capacity proof is actually referenced around the number of test benches that you have.
“The function of how many meters you can take through the entire test operations in the course of either an eight-hour period or maybe even a three-hour period or whatever it is.
“It is on the basis of this, that I make bold to say that we can produce over 3 million meters from the 34 set of meter benches that we are currently test running in this factory.”
The general manager noted that government could not do anything to enhance the company’s productivity.
“The government can only support to ensure that the capacity and capability proof is translated into productivity by improved level of patronage,” he said.
Similarly, Dr Emmanuel Audu, Group Executive Director, Technical and Operations, Income Electrix, said that Metering Solutions had been able to bridge the gap between importation and local production of meters in Nigeria.
Audu noted that with the citing of the company in Onna, hundreds of locals have been provided with sustainable means of livelihood through direct and indirect employments.
According to him, the inspection tour is to ascertain the production capacity and standard of products as part of efforts to push patronage.
In the same vein, Mr Nathan Shatti, Commissioner for Finance and Management Services, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), described products of Metering Solutions as comparable with that of foreign ones.
“I am actually impressed; and they have a lot of capacity here. They can do up to 10,000 meters in a day, which is very impressive.
“I am sure they can also up that, especially with additional shifts. So its quite a good job here. An investment that is done by Nigerian investors. So we really need to commend them. We really need to encourage them.
“it is very important for the commission to ensure that companies like Metering Solutions are given the opportunity to participate in that process of metering Nigerians under the presidential metering initiative,” he said.
