Discos Raked In N325bn Revenue In 9months — NERC
The 11 electricity distribution companies in the country collected total revenue of N325bn from customers in the first nine months of last year, the latest data from the Nigerian electricity Regulatory Commission showed.
The total revenue collected by the Discos translated to 63.99 per cent of the N508bn that the customers were billed.
The total revenue collected by the Discos from customers in the third quarter of 2018 stood at N107bn out of the total billing of N163.2bn.
This represents a 3.9 per cent decrease in the total collection when compared to the second quarter.
“The slight decrease in revenue collection in the quarter under review is jointly attributed to a decrease in the amount of energy received by Discos and lower billing efficiency relative to the second quarter,” the regulator said.
The total aggregate collection by the power firms from customers in the second quarter stood at N111.5bn out of the total billing of N173.7bn.
The Discos recorded a 4.5 per cent increase in the total collection in the second quarter when compared to the N106.6bn collected in the first quarter.
The poor collection efficiency by the Discos has adversely impacted the financial liquidity of the industry, which in turn, has led to reduced investment in the Nigerian electricity supply industry.”
According to the Association of Nigeria electricity Distributors, Disco operators only collect 24 per cent of the tariff revenues, while the balance goes upstream to transmission, generation and other industry stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian electricity Regulatory Commission on Thursday announced that it had commenced the implementation of a new law that prevents foreign materials, personnel and services from dominating operations in Nigeria’s power sector.
It said the law would regulate how the country’s electricity supply industry made use of foreign equipment, workforce and other services.
The commission’s Chairman, Prof. James Momoh, disclosed this at the opening ceremony of a twoday workshop on the minimum specification of Nigerian content and requirements for labour in the power sector and an exhibition of local products/services for the industry.
Momoh said the law, known as ‘Regulation on National Content Development for the Power Sector,’ was enacted in 2014, but its implementation started this month.
he said the implementation of the law was immediate and that operators in the sector were expected to abide by it or risk regulatory sanctions.
The NERC boss noted that going forward, electricity distribution and generation companies, as well as the Transmission Company of Nigeria, would have to abide by the minimum local content standards set by the commission in the regulation.
In his address, the Minister of Power, Works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, complained that the power sector had remained vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign services, especially with regards to transactions often consummated in the United States dollars against the naira.
he noted that it was necessary for Nigeria to begin to develop local capacity in the power sector to cut down its dependence on foreign equipment and services.
The minister, who was represented by the Director of Procurement at the ministry, Mr Ahmed Abdul, said, “The Nigerian electricity Supply Industry is heavily dependent on imported human resources, material, equipment and services. It is consequently vulnerable to foreign exchange availability and rates, to the extent that contracts for gas and generation are denominated in foreign currency.”
