The Nigerian Central Bank, Nigerian Bulk energy Trading Plc, and Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company are all owed a total of N190 billion for the delivery of energy, according to the federal government-owned power company Niger Delta Power Holding Company.
This was disclosed to The PUNCH by NDPHC’s Managing Director and CEO, Chiedu Ugbo, on the fringes of a media conference in Lagos on Monday.
He claims that the estimate was calculated using the N190 billion in outstanding debt for energy delivery as of the current year.
He stated that the government agencies owed the N190 billion debt between May 2023 and 2015.
He added that NBET owed the bulk of the debt, although he did not state the exact amount.
“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,” he said.
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According to Ugbo, the debt had made it impossible for the company to fulfill some of its responsibilities, including paying gas suppliers and covering operating costs like maintaining a parts supply.
“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,” he said.
The firm needed “urgent private capital mobilization,” he said, adding that it had to reduce expenses and had been able to maintain operations with internally produced income in addition to Federal Government initiatives.
“Despite the interventions and other FGN initiatives in networks, liquidity challenges persist. It is obvious that a lot more investment is required in transmission and government alone cannot do this. There is therefore need for urgent private capital mobilisation, and exploring independent transmission projects starting with Gencos as investors. With NDPHC’s track record, this is possible within the shortest possible time” he said.
Speaking at the event, Executive Director of Generation, Engr. Abdullahi Kassim, stated that the company hoped to address the issues through the “Light-up Nigeria Initiative,” a program designed to use its generation assets to deliver a dependable supply to electricity distribution companies, third-party project developers that aggregate load and offer a dependable supply to bulk customers, and eligible (maximum demand) customers.
“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,” he said.
The goal of the ‘Light Up Nigeria Initiative’, he said is to provide more than 97 per cent generated power to the masses.
