Teddy Oscar, Abuja
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has given the distribution companies (DISCOs) until 4 p.m. on Thursday to remit every single kobo they have collected so far to the market operator (MO).
NERC chairman, Sam Amadi, gave the ultimatum on Wednesday in Abuja while briefing energy correspondents on the current issues in the nation’s power sector.
Amadi hinted that the DISCOs have only made about N2 billion remittance to the market operator, leaving an outstanding N10 billion.
The regulatory boss also revealed that the current drop in power generation to shortfall in gas supply.
“The market operator is the one that is daily receiving these remittances, and I will assume that the market operation office would have up to date report.
“But as at Monday, the report from the market operator is that only about N2 billion has been paid, and N10 billion is outstanding.
“As at yesterday (Tuesday), only Eko, Ikeja and, to some extent, Kaduna (DISCOs) had remitted what they were supposed to remit to the market operator. Yesterday,
“NERC wrote a letter informing the operators that they are under obligation by their licence to make all necessary remittance to the market operator’s account, and we have given a deadline of Thursday 4 p.m. for all distributor companies to remit their statutory remittances to the market operator’s account,” he said.
Reacting to the recent drop in power generation, Amadi hinted that nearly 3,000 megawatts were left unutilised as a result of gas constraint.
He, therefore, observed that fast tracking the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) would go a long way to improve the commerciality of gas supply.
“Some people have complained about outages, interruptions and decline in power supply.
“We also want to inform you that we are also discussing with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), but we need to understand that the constraint with the gas supply.
“As at yesterday, about 2,859 megawatts were unutilised capacity due to gas constraint.
“I think this is the time for the National Assembly to fast track the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) because that goes a long way to enhance the commerciality of gas supply,” he added.
He said that the commission is going to hold a strategy workshop with gas suppliers, gas regulators, generating companies and other stakeholders soon.
“The workshoprwould enable us to have firsthand feedback on the issues around gas supply-to-power, and hopefully, we’ll have much more reply supply to both the NIPP (National Integrated Power Project) plants and plants,” he aadded.
