None of the four international bilateral customers supplied by power generation companies in Nigeria’s electricity industry made payments against the cumulative invoice of $14.19 million issued by the Market Operator for services rendered in the first quarter of 2024. This was disclosed in a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), obtained by our correspondent.
According to the Punch, the foreign entities involved are Para-SBEE in Benin Republic ($3.15 million), Transcorp-SBEE in Benin ($4.46 million), Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo ($1.21 million), and Odukpani-CEET in Togo ($5.36 million).
Additionally, NERC revealed that no payments were made by domestic bilateral customers against the cumulative invoice of ₦1.86 million issued by the Market Operator for services rendered during the same period.
However, the report noted that some bilateral customers, both local and international, made payments during the quarter towards settling outstanding Market Operator invoices from previous periods. Specifically, two international customers collectively paid $5.96 million, while eight local bilateral customers remitted ₦505.71 million towards debts incurred prior to Q1 2024.
NERC expressed concern over the growing issue of payment indiscipline among local and international bilateral customers and emphasized that the Market Operator is expected to enforce market rules to address this challenge.
In a related development, it was reported in May that international consumers failed to remit approximately $51.26 million to Nigeria for electricity exported in 2023. The Federal Government’s industry data highlighted these non-remittances, showing that bilateral power consumers also did not remit about ₦7.61 billion to the Nigerian power sector in 2023.
NERC condemned the situation, urging the Market Operator, a division of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) responsible for power exports, to take decisive action. An analysis of the government’s data indicated 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.
