The Federal Government announced on Monday that power users spent N267.86 billion on electricity bills in the second quarter of this year.
According to The Punch, this information was provided by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission in its recently issued report for the second quarter of 2023, which also discussed the effectiveness of electricity distribution firms’ collection efforts during the review period.
The statement read, “The total income collected by all Discos in 2023/Q2 was N267.86 billion out of N354.61 billion billed to subscribers. This results in a collecting efficiency of 75.54 percent, up 6.79 pp (basic points) over the first quarter of 2023 (68.75 percent).
“The increased metering by Discos and the implementation of various collection campaigns for improved remittance by post-paid customers can be credited for the increase in collection efficiency.”
According to the NERC report, market remittance totaled N194.69 billion in 2023/Q2, of which N154.04 billion was paid to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading for generation costs, and N40.65 billion was paid to the market operator for transmission and administrative services.
The Discos collectively remitted a total of N185.36 billion out of this sum (N152.48 billion for NBET and N32.88 billion for MO), leaving an unpaid balance of N9.32 billion. This results in a remittance performance of 95.21% in 2023/Q2 as opposed to the 67.43% achieved in 2023/Q1, according to the report.
Regarding payments made by special and cross-border clients, the regulator reported that only Transcorp-SBEE made a payment of $1.43 million in 2023/Q2 against a $2.13 million invoice for services provided in 2023/Q2. The other three foreign customers served by the MO did not make any payments.
According to the report, the MO sent three additional international customers an invoice for $11.97 million for services delivered in 2023/Q22, but none of them paid it.
According to the report, bilateral clients together paid N816.66 million out of a total N2,845.08 million that was billed to them by the MO for services provided in 2023/Q23.
Data from the research revealed that, notwithstanding improvements made by the Discos in their payments to the power market, international customers of Nigeria’s electricity defaulted significantly during the review period.
