Energy

How electricity companies suffered N420bn tariff deficit in two years

Published

6 years ago

February 9, 2018

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The electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) has been declared to have suffered setback in about N420 billion non-collectable tariff in the past two years.

It was gathered that the Federal Government in a Power Sector Recovery Programme document revealed that DISCOs suffered N420 billion shortfall in the amount of electricity tariff payable by consumers to the power sector between January 2015 and December 2016.

The FG remarked that the huge tariff shortfall has been a major constraint to the power sector due to insufficient end-user tariffs that should have been paid to the industry.

Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, was said to have presented the Power Sector Recovery Programme document which detailed policy actions to be implemented by the Federal Government, to civil society organizations in Abuja.

It was highlighted in the document that: “The challenges include infrastructure constraints associated with gas, generation, transmission and distribution; insufficient end-user tariffs; sector tariff shortfalls between January 2015 and December 2016 of N420 billion; slow pace of loss reduction and load rejection by the DisCos (distribution companies); and sector governance challenges. Collectively, these challenges have discouraged private sector investment in the sector and continued to impede Nigeria’s economic development.”