The Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading, NBET, Plc has failed to pay power producers, GENCOS, a total of N865.19 billion debt that has piled up in 21 months.
This outstanding payment was for the electricity produced and fed into the national grid between January 2019 and September 2020.
The government-owned NBET buys electricity in bulk from power generation companies through Power Purchase Agreements and sells through vesting contracts to the distribution companies, which then supply it to the consumers.
NBET received a total invoice of N1.22 trillion from the Gencos in the 21-month period but only paid N350.22 billion, representing 28.7 per cent of the invoice, according to a financial report published by Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission on Friday.
The power stations gave NBET a total invoice of N670.89 billion in 2019 and N544.50 billion for electricity produced between January and September 2020.
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The payment made to the Gencos by the bulk trader in 2019 was N174.25 billion (25.97 percent) and NBET also paid N175.97 billion (32.32 percent) in the first nine months of 2020.
Also, the data showed that the 11 electricity distribution companies (Discos) that sends the power generated by Gencos to consumers remitted only N302.66 billion to NBET in the period under review, out of a total invoice of N1.17 trillion.
This represents 25.87 percent of the total revenue expected from Discos during the period under review.
The Discos received a total invoice of N634.47 billion in 2019 and N538.25 billion between January and September 2020.
They paid NBET N181.43 billion in 2019 and N121.32 billion between January and September 2020.
The immediate past Chairman of NERC, Prof. James Momoh, in a recent interview with This Day recently, stated that electricity producers incur huge technical and commercial losses, because Discos are unable to charge the actual price of electricity in Nigeria due to low tariff.
This, according to him, leads to poor maintenance of the electricity infrastructure.
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He stated that the Nigerian government had paid over N1.3 trillion to operators in form of subsidy in the past five year.
“So, government keeps putting money as subsidies, N213 billion since President Buhari came in 2015, another N701 billion and recently another N600 billion.”
According to him, some of the debts were incurred by Ministries Departments and Agencies of government that use electricity without paying.
He added that state governments and local governments were complicit as they had not been paying for electricity consumed.
The NERC through its Chairman, Sanusi Garba, attempted to increase electricity tariff which was meant to begin January 1, 2021.
The tariff order stated that tariff for customers on service bands D and E – remained frozen and subsidized in line with the policy direction of the FG while the rates for service bands A, B, C, D and E were adjusted by N 2.00 to NGN 4.00 per kWh to reflect the partial impact of inflation and movement in forex.
However, due to backlash by Nigerians, the increment was halted by the government.
