NERC earns N3.25bn in Q1, spends N1.9bn

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) says it earned a higher revenue of N3.25 billion but its expenditure rose to N1.94bn in the first quarter of 2020.

According to the first quarter report, the revenue was an increase of 57.31 per cent from that of the fourth quarter of 2019 due to increased levy and internal revenues.

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However, its expenditure rose to N1.94bn from N1.74bn incurred previously.

With this, it has a positive net cash flow of ₦1.32bn but said there are N230 million existing liabilities it needed to clear at the end of the first quarter.

However, as NERC’s revenue improved, “The financial viability and commercial performance of the industry continued to be a major challenge with a decline in the first quarter of 2020,” the report said.

For every N10 worth of energy sold, the DisCos could not collect N3.88. The 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) billed electricity consumers ₦186.82bn but collected ₦114.29bn, leaving a N72.53bn deficit in the first three months of 2020. The performance declined by 4.21% (billing) and 8.26% (collection) from that of Q4 2019.

The DisCos got N185.1bn energy invoice from the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading PLC (NBET) and for service charge from the Market Operator (MO), but paid only N60.2bn representing 32.5% remittance level. This dropped by 5.8% from the figure in December 2019.

Of the 10.48m registered electricity consumers, only 4.232m (40.39%) have meters, leaving 59.61% of them under estimated billing.

Compared to Q4 2019, the number of registered and metered customers increased by 1% and 8%;

During the period, the 11 DisCos received 204,506 consumer complaints which was 15% more than in Q4 2019. They resolved 188,749 and left 15,757 others.

Most complaints were on estimated billing, metering and service interruption; accounting for 61.36% of the complaints.