How 11 firms piled N542bn electricity debt in 12 months

Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) could not pay N542.73 billion from the invoice of N816.16bn handed to them in 2020, a report has said.

According to the 2020 annual report of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) released recently, the 11 DisCos paid only N370.34bn, which is around 66 per cent of their invoice rate.

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According to the report, the level of collection efficiency indicates that as much as N3.35 out of every N10 worth of energy sold during the year was not collected from customers as and when due.

There was a slight reduction in deaths and injuries as 40 deaths were reported and 76 injuries of various degrees involving both employees of utilities and third parties compared to 42 deaths and 77 injuries in 2019.

Also in 2020, NERC said it generated N14.25bn, which was 13.79% higher than the N12.52bn realised in 2019.

However, its expenditure increased by 6.60% from N10.42bn in 2019 to N11.10bn in 2020. The commission said it has a positive net cash flow of N4.11bn in 2020, which also was down by 4.43% compared to N4.30bn in 2019.