Electricity companies lose N20 billion monthly

Distribution Companies, DISCOs lose about N20bn monthly across the country due to collection gap.

This was made known by the Chief Corporate Service Officer, Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, KADECO, Mr Uday Mishra disclosed in Kaduna, during an interactive with newsmen on the various challenges surrounding DISCOs across the Country

According to Mishra, the major challenge as regards electricity distribution in the Country is the non payment of bills by about 60 per cent consumers.

“All DISCOs are surviving hardly because they have just 40% of legal consumers on their billing net while the majority of consumers are involved in bypassing, theft, non payment of bills and direct hooking”.

He however regretted that honest consumers suffer infrequent electricity supply because they have to subsidise other non payers and electricity thieves.

” We call on consumers to take care of their duties by paying bills and disengaging in any kind of electricity theft, saying, the company disconnects as last resort which is also costly and time wasting”, he stressed.

Mishra called on government to subsidise electricity tariff for agriculture related projects, low income groups and the poor masses residing at the slums.

The Head of Compliance, KADECO, Engineer Lawal Lawal explained that the company is only entitled to 8 per cent of the power generated daily in the country, which it distributes to Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi States.

“We have no option than to ration supply because electricity is solely dependent on gas in Nigeria. Our total demand is 600 megawatts but we rarely receive 300 for distribution daily”.

“Kaduna even gets more supply due to high population and other economic activities when compared to its the other states, yet, the supply is poor”, Lawal said.

He attributed the low distribution of electricity to little supply from the source, adding that, the poor revenue collected from consumers affects the company’s health.

KADECO calls on regulatory bodies like NERC, MoP and others to strengthen the sector with better regulatory framework, government sponsored investment, subsidy for lower income groups, tie ups with multilateral agencies to help support the industry.