The federal government paid N36 billion to subsidize electricity consumption in the first quarter of 2023.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC) confirmed this in its quarterly report which also showed that N12 billion was paid monthly to Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading (NBET) for electricity subsidies.
Charged with the collection of revenues due to generation companies and the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) from the DisCos, the sum of N141.5bn was paid to NBET from the N209.2 billion invoice given to the DisCos.
Recall that the total revenue collected by the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) in the first quarter was N247 billion from the N359.3 billion billed to customers.
A breakdown indicated that Abuja DisCo paid N20 billion from the N32.8 billion it was billed, while Benin DisCo paid N14.4 billion from the N17.8 billion, Eko Disco paid N19.4 billion from the N22.8 billion it was charged and Enugu DisCo paid N15.72 billion from its N20 billion.
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.
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 3 complaints cumulatively accounted for over 79 per cent of total complaints,” the report stated.
