•Says legal disputes, bottlenecks slowing rollout of 1.44m smart meters
•Tags project’s development objectives as ‘moderately satisfactory’
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
The World Bank has raised concerns over persistent implementation delays in Nigeria’s Distribution Sector Recovery Programme (DISREP), warning that legal disputes, procurement bottlenecks and slow contract execution are threatening the pace of reforms aimed at improving electricity distribution across the country.
However, the bank disclosed that it is considering an additional $308 million financing package to accelerate the programme, including the procurement of 1.7 million more electricity meters, network rehabilitation and customer enumeration.
The details are contained in the World Bank’s Midterm Review Implementation Support Mission and Additional Financing Preparation Aide Memoire seen by THISDAY.
The bank noted that although implementation progress has improved since the last supervision mission in October 2025, several critical challenges remain unresolved.
According to the report, while the installation of 1.44 million smart meters has gathered pace across nine electricity Distribution Companies (Discos), progress has stalled in Ikeja and Enugu Discos.
It stated that procurement of another 1.55 million internationally sourced smart meters was also disrupted after a court injunction halted the opening of bids on April 30, 2026, following a complaint by the Association of Meter Manufacturers of Nigeria.
In addition, contracts for domestically procured meters and Meter Data Management Systems (MDMS), launched as far back as 2024, it said, have continued to suffer what the World Bank described as “unjustified delays.”
The bank said the pace of meter installations has nevertheless improved significantly, rising from about 30,000 installations monthly in late 2025 to approximately 65,000 in the first quarter of 2026.
Out of the 1.15 million smart meters allocated to nine Discos, it said 685,000 had already arrived in Nigeria, while 365,000 had been installed. It added that all 1.15 million meters were expected to arrive in the country by the end of June 2026, with 500,000 expected to have been installed by then.
The report further revealed that DISREP has already contributed about 401,500 people to the World Bank’s Mission 300 initiative, which seeks to expand electricity access across Africa.
According to the bank, the project was restructured in February 2026 to better capture its contribution to expanding electricity access, with the installation of 365,000 smart meters accounting for the current figure.
On financing, the World Bank disclosed that discussions had progressed on an additional $308 million funding request submitted by the federal government.
The proposed financing, it said, would support the acquisition of 1.7 million additional meters, technical assistance, customer enumeration, feeder based network rehabilitation and potentially investments in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.
It added that about $120 million of the proposed financing would be devoted to the new metering programme if the government opts for all smart meters.
The report also recommended extending the project’s closing date by two years and one month to June 2030 to provide sufficient time for procurement, installation and implementation of the expanded programme.
According to the World Bank, the extension would enable electricity distribution companies to fully implement the additional investments and achieve agreed performance targets.
The bank also highlighted delays in the Programme for Results (PforR) component, noting that although it disbursed a 15 per cent advance of $37.5 million to the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in December 2025, the funds had yet to reach the Discos.
It stressed the need for the money to be transferred urgently to enable the utilities to accelerate investments in network rehabilitation and service improvements.
The World Bank further disclosed that the Independent Verification Agent (IVA) had completed verification of first year results, making Nigeria eligible for an additional reimbursement of $14.9 million linked to verified project achievements.
Despite the challenges, the World Bank maintained that both implementation progress and progress towards achieving the project’s development objectives remain “moderately satisfactory”, while urging Nigerian authorities to resolve procurement and contractual bottlenecks quickly to sustain the momentum of electricity sector reforms.
The DISREP initiative focuses on operational infrastructure, aiming to deploy over 3 million smart meters and reduce commercial electricity theft and collection losses across distribution companies.
The $500 million programme approved by the World Bank Board on February 4, 2021, aims at improving the financial and technical performance of Nigeria’s Discos. It was structured to directly tackle Nigeria’s systemic “estimated billing” crisis, massive revenue losses, and poor grid infrastructure.