The monthly payment for energy by the 11 electricity Distribution Companies, DisCos, in Nigeria has plunged to 30 per cent, the Market Operator, MO, in the electricity market has said.
Acting managing director of MO, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, Mr Moshood Saleeman, who spoke at the Market Operator’s Participants’ Workshop on Thursday, October 27, in Abuja, said: The remittance we get from the Discos is about 30 per cent and that is not good enough.”
“It is not too impressive. We are talking about less than 30 per cent. We believe if we can do higher than that it will be better for the industry.”
Participants in the present Transition Electricity Market (TEM) stage of the privatised sector ought to pay for energy costs and other services by 100 per cent. Daily Trust reports
The payments, however have dropped to 30 per cent far from the over 55 per cent being recorded by the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, NBET, in 2015.
Mr. Saleeman said the workshop was to reawaken market participants to be disciplined and become more compliant to market rules. “We are also emphasizing on liquidity so that participants, especially the DisCos, can make payments on time to service other aspects of the power sector,” he noted.
The MO helmsman noted that TEM was not fully enforced yet as the privatised firms were still growing, adding that, “The signal we are giving is that if they don’t comply we will be forced to enforce the penalties like security deposits and even escrow the accounts of Discos concerned.”
Meanwhile, the MD of TCN, Engr. Abubakar Tambuwal Atiku, in his address said payments to its other arm, the Transmission Service Provider (TSP), by participants had been so low that it could not carry out its network maintenance, reinforcement and expansion of the grid.
