CBN, NBET And Others Owe N190bn For Electricity Supply - NDPHC Discloses

The Niger Delta Power Holding Company has disclosed that the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, and the Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company owe the sum of N190bn for electricity supply.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, NDPHC, Chiedu Ugbo, to a correspondent on the sideline of a media briefing in Lagos on Monday.

He noted that the estimate was arrived at as a result of debts owed for electricity supply to the tune of N190 billion from 2015 till date.

According to him, “Huge indebtedness by the market to NDPHC runs into hundreds of billions, N190 billion as of May for unpaid invoices. NDPHC is also not paid for availability but only as dispatched thereby depriving NDPHC of hundreds of billions since 2015 when the Transitional Electricity Market was declared, and the government has so far been denied revenue as high as N3trn."

Ugbo further noted that the debt had made it difficult to meet some of its obligations such as operational expenditures including stock of spares, payment to gas suppliers, and others

He said, “Since we are being owed, we can’t also pay our gas suppliers and they too won’t supply us gas. Gas is what we use in generating power, and if we can’t generate; we can’t sell. The name plate capacity of our ten plants is 4000MW. We have the capacity to generate as much as 2000MW but we currently generate 975MW."

While speaking, the Executive Director, Generation, Engr. Abdullahi Kassim also noted that the Company hoped to resolve the challenges through its bilateral contracts ‘Light-up Nigeria Initiative’, a programme designed to leverage its generation assets to deliver reliable supply to eligible (maximum demand) customers, electricity distribution companies, and third-party project developers that aggregate load and provide a reliable supply to bulk customers.

According to him, “To underscore the importance of this programme, it is directly led by NDPHC’s Chairman, and Vice President, Sen. Kashim Shettima. The approach is to focus more on sales to bulk purchasers and developers that aggregate load because of the volume of power that can be sold on each such project (subject to the proper payment security being in place). The initiative offers a sure path to being able to sell a significant part of NDPHC’s commercially stranded capacity to light up businesses and homes."

The goal of the ‘Light Up Nigeria Initiative’, he explained that it is to provide more than 97 per cent generated power to the masses.