The Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said that Benin, Niger and Togo and other special customers owe Nigeria N770 million being the total bill issued by the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBETC) and the Market Operator (MO) of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The commission disclosed this in its Q2 report published on its website.
The agency said the amount accrued from non-payment of power consumption by the debtor countries for the second quarter of 2021.
It said none of the counties paid anything for the power supplied to them from Nigeria during the period.
The neighbouring countries’ power firms include Societe Nigerienne d’electricite – NIGELEC, in Niger Republic; Societe Beninoise d’Energie Electrique – SBEE, in Benin Republic; and Compagnie Energie Electrique du Togo– CEET, in Togo Republic.
“During the quarter under review, NBET and MO issued a total of N0.77bn in respect of energy sold by NBET and services rendered by MO to the special (Ajaokuta Steel Co. Ltd and other bilateral customers) and international customers (Societe Nigerienne d’electricite – NIGELEC, Societe Beninoise d’Energie Electrique – SBEE and Compagnie Energie Electrique du Togo– CEET).
“No payment was made by these customers during the quarter under review. It is hoped that as the economy of these customers improves post-COVID-19 lockdown so that they will resume the settlement of their bills in full.”
With respect to Nigeria, NERC stated that the total revenue collected by eleven 11 DisCos from customers in the second quarter of 2021 stood at ₦185.29 billion out of the total bill of ₦268.97 billion billed to customers.
In contrast to the preceding quarter, it said there was marginal increase of 0.34 per cent in the DisCos’ collection efficiency, that is the total revenue collected by Discos as a ratio of the total billings issued to customers) during the second quarter of 2021.
With respect to the payment of electricity sold to the DisCos NBET, the commission said the distribution firm did not pay up all their bills.
“During the second quarter of 2021, a total invoice of N259.7bn was issued to the eleven Discos for energy received from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc and for service charge by MO, out of which a sum of N130.11bn was settled, representing remittance performance of 50.11 per cent.
“This represents a 1.78 percentage point decrease from the final settlement rate recorded in the first quarter of 2021.”
The NERC stated that apart from Eko Disco, none of the other Discos met their expected minimum remittance thresholds to NBET in the quarter under review.
On the whole, NERC stated that the total Disco remittance to NBET was 76 per cent of expected total for the quarter, as the average aggregate remittance performances to MO and NBET decreased by 1.78 percentage points from 51.88 per cent in first quarter 2021 to 50.1 per cent in the second quarter.
“Discos remittance performance level ranged from 10.51 per cent (Yola) to 63.69 per cent (Eko) for NBET and 28.76 per cent (Yola) to 99.88 per cent (Eko) for MO.
“Ikeja recorded zero remittance to MO in the months of May and June 2021 as they wait to resolve service level agreement dispute,” it added.
