The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has revealed that the Federal Government owes over N4 trillion in electricity subsidies to generation and distribution companies.
Adelabu made this disclosure at the ongoing public presentation of the National Integrated Electricity Policy and Nigeria Integrated Resource Plan in Abuja, on Thursday.
He emphasized that this substantial debt hampers the power sector’s ability to deliver optimal services to consumers.
“He said, “One of the major issues that concerns me is the huge debt in the sector. We are talking about legacy debt, which is across the board, over N2tn, and we still have an unpaid subsidy for 2024; we have another N1.9 trillion owed to them as part of electricity subsidy for 2024, while DisCos are owed N450bn for 2024 electricity subsidy.
“How do you expect the GenCos to perform optimally? How do you expect them to pay for gas, service and maintain their turbines and other infrastructure as well as pay their staff if a total of N4 trillion is being owed to them?
“I do not deceive myself. The government cannot afford to continue to fund the level of subsidy that our consumption pattern is throwing up because we have seen increasing consumption of electricity.
“The key issues are the market, liquidity, and sector reforms. We’ll continue to focus on that. We’ll look at the tariff again. I am not saying that we’re going to increase the tariff but to look at the tariff and see how we can improve upon our modest achievement of last year.”
The minister stated that the government can no longer sustain the current electricity subsidy model and is developing a new intervention strategy to target those in genuine need.
He also criticized the lack of investment in distribution networks by DisCos, noting that the expected migration of more customers to Band A has not materialized.
