Home Mining and Energy Electricity: DisCos’ revenue collection rises 30% to N782.74bn
Electricity: DisCos’ revenue collection rises 30% to N782.74bn
The data also showed that collection efficiency improved by three percentage points, rising to 73.6 percent recorded in the first nine months of 2023 when compared to 70.12 percent collection efficiency recorded in the first nine months of 2022.
On a month-on-month basis, revenue collection in the month of September 2023 rose by N8.49 billion or 9.9 percent to N94 billion from N85.51 billion recorded in August 2023.
Despite the increased collection efficiency in 2023, NERC data however indicated that revenue shortfall by the DisCos rose to N503.13 billion in the months of January to September 2023, compared to revenue shortfall of N268.31 billion recorded over similar period in 2022.
The revenue shortfalls in addition to the Federal Government’s decision to freeze electricity tariff increase last year, have increased electricity subsidies payable by the government to about N600 billion for 2023 and a projection of N1.6 trillion for 2024.
The situation has led to growing calls for the removal of electricity subsidies and institution of a cost reflective tariff for the market.
Speaking on the revenue collected from consumers, the Chairman, Energy Consumers Association of Nigeria, Chijoke James lamented that while operators and experts were fixated on the amount of “money collected or not collected by the DisCos, they forget that services have remained very poor.
“They talk of cost reflective tariff as if we have not had it before in the industry. The question is, did all the tariff increments approved by NERC at any point lead to improvement in electricity supply? The big answer is no. There is no desire to improve supply. All the owners are looking for is how to collect more money from customers without improving services”, he added.
But other stakeholders in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI, in a communiqué issued following the maiden edition of the NESI Market Participants and Stakeholders’ Roundtable in Abuja, noted that government continuing interventions in the market mean the market was not performing well.
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