Togo and the Benin Republic are indebted to Nigeria, with a cumulative debt of $14.19 million for electricity supplied in the first quarter of 2024.
This information was revealed in a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which highlighted non-payment of electricity bills by the four international bilateral customers supplied by Nigeria’s power generating companies (GenCos).
The report identified the foreign companies involved in the debt as follows: Para-SBEE in Benin Republic owes $3.15 million, Transcorp-SBEE in Benin owes $4.46 million, Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo owes $1.21 million, and Odukpani-CEET in Togo owes $5.36 million. NERC noted that none of these companies made any payments against the cumulative invoices issued by the Market Operator for services rendered during the quarter.
In addition to the foreign debt, the report also indicated that local bilateral customers within Nigeria did not make any remittances against the cumulative invoice of $1.88 million issued for services rendered in Q1 2024. Despite this, some payments were made during the same quarter towards outstanding Market Operator invoices from previous periods. Notably, a total of $5.96 million was paid by two international customers, while eight local bilateral customers contributed N505.71 million towards debts incurred before Q1 2024.
NERC expressed concern over the payment indiscipline displayed by both local and international bilateral customers and urged the Market Operator to enforce market rules to address the situation. This development follows earlier reports in May 2024, indicating that international consumers failed to remit approximately $51.26 million to Nigeria for electricity exported in 2023. The Federal Government’s data also revealed that bilateral power consumers did not remit about N7.61 billion to the Nigerian power sector last year.
NERC condemned these persistent payment defaults and stressed the need for decisive action by the Market Operator, which is an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) responsible for managing Nigeria’s power exports.
An analysis of government industry data revealed that international consumers failed to remit $16.11 million, $11.97 million, $11.16 million, and $12.02 million for electricity exported to them in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023, respectively.
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