The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission
(NERC) report has shown that Discos were deliberately hoarding market funds to
the detriment of the industry, noting that it was working on a framework to
stop them from keeping more than their due income in the market.
According to the report, the Discos were still
inefficient in their revenue remittances to the sector.
The report revealed that the Discos were issued a
bill of N147 billion for energy received from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity
Trading (NBET) Plc and for the services provided by the market administrators,
but they remitted only N44 billion of the invoice, even after collecting N90.3
billion out of the total bill of N151.8 billion they issued to their customers.
NERC said: “The liquidity challenges in the
industry continued to manifest within the quarter as evidenced in the Discos’
remittances relative to the invoice received for energy purchased from the NBET
and the invoice received for administrative services from the Market Operator
(MO).
“In the third quarter of 2017, whereas Discos were
issued an invoice of N147 billion for energy received from NBET and for the
services provided by the market administrators, only N44 billion of the invoice
was settled, creating a total shortfall of N103 billion.”
It added that “although part of the outstanding
invoiced amount not paid to the upstream by Discos is due to tariff deficit,
the commission has noted that some (if not all) Discos are not incentivised to
improve on their revenue collection because they are currently opportune to
appropriate market funds and sometimes keep more than their fair share.”
To address the poor remittance by Discos, NERC said
it was developing a framework to ensure fair and equitable distribution of
market revenue under a structured regime.
According to the agency, this framework is aimed at
ensuring fairness and transparency in the utilisation of market funds, thereby
improves the liquidity in the industry.
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