The Electricity Distribution Companies in Nigeria has described as a
lie the claim by the Federal Government that it has generated 7,000 Mega
Watts of electricity for a while now.
The position of the Discos
was made known by the Executive Secretary of the Association of Nigeria
Electricity Distributors, Sunday Oduntan, when he spoke with newsmen on
Sunday.
Oduntan spoke against the backdrop of the assertion of the
Transmission Company of Nigeria that 7,000mw of electricity was being
generated but the Discos lack the capacity to distribute it.
He said such quantum of electricity does not enter customers’ homes in Nigeria.
He said: “Today’s TCN has not transported to my members anything near 6,000mw one day.
“Never in the history of Nigeria.
“TCN has not welled power up to 6,000mw for one week from 1960 to 2019.
“Let somebody come out and state otherwise.
“We will asked them which day and when?”
Oduntan
also said the non-review of the Multi-Year Tariff Order since February
1, 2016 has put the shortfall of the Nigerian Electricity Supply
Industry beyond the threshold N1.4 trillion.
Explaining the damage
caused by the freezing of the review on the industry, he said: “Our
records show a figure in excess of N1.4 trillion shortfall of the value
chain.”
He noted that the association would been bold to name non-performing DisCos if the companies had a cost reflective tariff.
He said: “If you cannot collect 30 per cent (revenue), no Jupiter should expect you to remit 100 per cent.”
Speaking on how power supply can be improved, Oduntan said the sector must agree on the landing cost and the payment for it.
He said the “other option is to say the price is N100, we subsidise the poor who cannot pay N11,000 for energy every month.
“You now subsidise it.
“If you introduce subsidy, the shortfall, the remaining figure has to be paid for.”
Oduntan
listed Kenya, Tunisia, Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia, Morocco, Egypt,
Algeria and Burkina Faso as countries that subsidise electricity for
poor consumers.
He said another is that “if the government is not
buoyant enough to subsidise electricity, it should allow the National
Electricity Regulatory Commission to make a law that will create an
instrument called regulatory asset.”
He said this will cover the
shortfall in the industry because the DisCos can use it to borrow money
from banks, adding: “In every tariff computation there is an allowance
for Capital Expenditure, which the operators’ expenditure must not
exceed.
“The current tariff in the industry is a suppressed one as
it gives all DisCos N45 billion and each DisCo N5.5 billion annual
expenditure.”
Oduntan said the TCN, on the other hand, has a total
of N50 billion annual expenditure approved for it, stressing that it
was unfair for the TCN to complain about DisCos’ low investment.
With that heavy CAPEX, he said, the TCN cannot solve half of its problems.
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