The Federal Government has disclosed that Togo and Benin Republic owe Nigeria a cumulative sum of $14.19 million for electricity supplied by Nigerian power generation companies during the first quarter of 2024.
According to a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), none of the four international bilateral customers who receive electricity from Nigeria made any payments against the invoices issued by the market operator for services rendered in Q1 2024.
The four international customers include Para-SBEE in Benin Republic, which owes $3.15 million; Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic, with a debt of $4.46 million; Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo, which owes $1.21 million; and Odukpani-CEET in Togo, which has an outstanding payment of $5.36 million.
The NERC report also revealed that local bilateral customers within Nigeria failed to remit a cumulative invoice amount of N1.86 million issued by the market operator for the same period.
However, it noted that some payments were made by both local and international customers towards settling outstanding debts from previous quarters.
Specifically, two international customers paid a total of $5.96 million during the quarter, while eight local bilateral customers remitted N505.71 million to settle debts accumulated before the first quarter of 2024.
NERC expressed concern over what it termed as “payment indiscipline” exhibited by both local and international customers and urged the market operator to enforce the market rules to address this issue.
Earlier reports from May 2024 highlighted that international consumers had failed to remit approximately $51.26 million to Nigeria for electricity exported during the year 2023. The Federal Government’s industry data showed that these consumers also withheld about N7.61 billion from the Nigerian power sector in 2023.
The NERC criticized this pattern of non-payment and emphasized the need for stricter enforcement by the Market Operator, a division of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which oversees Nigeria’s power exports.
Government data analysis revealed that international consumers did not remit $16.11 million, $11.97 million, $11.16 million, and $12.02 million for electricity supplied in the first, second, third, and fourth quarters of 2023, respectively.
