Electricity subsidy: FG spent N36bn in three months – NERC

The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) has said the federal government paid the sum of N36bn to subsidise electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2023.

In its quarterly report, NERC said the money amounted to the payment of N12bn monthly which was paid to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET).

With the NBET charged with the collection of revenues due to generation companies and the Transmission Company of Nigeria from the DisCos, the sum of N141.5billion was paid to the NBET from the N209.2billion invoice given to the DisCos.

Recall that the total revenue collected by the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) in the first quarter was N247billion from the N359.3billion billed to customers.

A breakdown indicated that Abuja DisCo paid N20billion from the N32.8billion it was billed, while Benin DisCo paid N14.4billion from the N17.8billion, Eko Disco paid N19.4billion from the N22.8billion it was charged and Enugu DisCo paid N15.72billion from its N20billion.

Ibadan Disco paid N17.5bn from its invoice of N24.5 billion, Ikeja DisCo paid N29.6bn from the N35.9bn given to it, Jos Disco paid N7.bn from the 8.8bn it was billed, Kaduna DisCo paid N1.8bn from the N15.3 bn. given to it, Kano paid N6.1 from its N15.bn with Port Harcourt DisCo paying 8.5bn from its N14.5bn and Yola Disco paid N899m from the N1bn it was billed.

NERC said the government intervention was made due to the “absence of cost-reflective tariffs, the government undertakes to cover the resultant gap (between the cost-reflective and allowed tariff) in the form of tariff shortfall funding. This funding is applied to the NBET invoices that are to be paid by DisCos.”

It said out of the 171,107 metres installed in 2023/Q1, 5.80 per cent were metered under the NMMP scheme, 92.71 per cent of customers were metered under the MAP intervention, while 1.47 per cent and 0.02 per cent were metered under the Vendor Financed and DisCo Financed schemes respectively.

It further disclosed that 85 reports were received from licensees from which there were 33 incidents resulting in 16 injuries and 17 fatalities were recorded.

It added that the root causes of incidents reported by the licensees were “illegal/unauthorised connections, unsafe condition/act, wire snap, vandalism, explosion, electrocution, fire outbreak, vehicular collision, and fall from height. The commission has initiated investigations into all reported incidents and will enforce relevant actions against licensees where necessary.”

It said during the period, the most frequently reported issues among the 249,683 complaints received by DisCos were metering (47.66 per cent), billing (22.72 per cent), and service interruption (9.22 per cent).

“These three complaints cumulatively accounted for over 79 per cent of total complaints,” it said.