Niger owes Nigeria 4bn for power supply — NERC  

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has said that Niger presently owes Nigeria N4.22bn ($5.48m) for power supply.

According to a quarterly report, 70 per cent of Niger’s share of electricity was purchased from the Nigerian business Mainstream in 2022 as said by  NIGELEC, the country’s sole electricity supplier.

However, Niger is working to finish its first dam by 2025 in order to break its energy dependence on Nigeria and The Kandadji Dam, which is situated about 180 km upstream of Niamey, is expected to produce 629 gigawatt-hours of energy annually as Kainji Dam in Niger State produces the electricity that is delivered to Niger.

The $5.48 million invoice for electricity supply issued by the Nigerian market operator has reportedly not been paid by Nigerien Electricity Society.

According to the report, it read, “None of the underlisted international customers made any payment against the cumulative $16.11m invoice issued to them in 2023/Q1; Paras-SBEE ($3.46m), Transcorp-SBEE ($3.85 million), Mainstream-NIGELEC ($5.48m) and Odukpani-CEET ($3.32 million).

“Out of N842.38m invoice issued by MO to all the eight (8) bilateral customers in the NESI, only North-South/Star Pipe made a remittance of N15.38m against its invoice of N24.69m.”

However, the coordinator of Power Sector Perspectives and president of the Nigeria Consumer Protection Network, Kunle Olubiyo said  that ECOWAS would cut off the Niger Republic’s access to the energy grid.

“About 60 per cent of power supply to Niger comes from Nigeria. Just like organised labour usually shuts down the national power grid as part of negotiations when all appeals might have failed to achieve results, Mr President (Tinubu) is the leader of ECOWAS at the moment,” he said.

For about one hour at a stretch, residents of Niamey, Maradi, and Zinder received power before it was shut off for up to five hours since last Tuesday and power outages like these are uncommon.