By Idowu Oyebanjo
The Federal Government
has announced plans to escrow and beam its searchlight into the revenue accounts
of the operations of the DisCos due to poor monthly remittances. Although
DisCos have condemned the move, this is a good step in the right direction. To
address the problems of NESI, a holistic view of every aspect of the
multi-faceted problems plaguing it is required with a view to solving them in a
coordinated manner.
One of the major problems in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) today is the potential for illiquidity. In simple terms, this arises when DisCos declare, whether truthfully or otherwise, that they have not collected enough money from consumers of electricity and so are unable to make full payments to the bulk electricity trader, NBET, for electricity received.
This has the potential
to always create illiquidity in NESI because their remittances should have been
used to pay all key stake holders in the industry including but not limited to
GenCos, TCN, Gas providers, market operator, NERC, NBET etc. The solutions to
address this anomaly include a massive investment in customer metering,
reduction in network losses, preventing electricity theft and collusion of
staff of electricity companies with consumers to defraud the industry, discontinuation
of estimated billing, and ensuring that revenues collected by DisCos in behalf
of NESI is transparent to all key stakeholders, and not least the Federal
Government which still owns 40% of DisCos. The government has chosen to
implement the last of the afore-mentioned solutions but the DisCos have frowned
at the move. Thus a critical review of the position of DisCos is in order.
