The indebtedness of the power sector to the Niger Delta Power Holding Company has hit N160bn, the Managing Director, NDPHC, Chiedu Ugbo, stated on Wednesday.
NDPHC is Nigeria’s power company fully subscribed to by the federal, state and local governments with a mandate to manage the power projects tagged ‘National Integrated Power Projects.’
Speaking at the headquarters of the power firm in Abuja, Ugbo explained that only about 30 per cent of the power supplied to the national electricity grid by the NDPHC was being paid for by the sector.
He noted that if not for the intervention of the Federal Government through its payment assurance facility, it would have been practically impossible for power generation companies to produce electricity.
Ugbo said, “On the level of indebtedness, I don’t evacuate all that I generate but only get to evacuate about 20 per cent based on the constraints in the sector and out of this we don’t get 70 per cent of the payment. We only get about 30 per cent.
“As at the last time I checked, as of May 31, we were owed N190bn, although some payments have come from the payment assurance. So it should be somewhere around N160bn now.”
He added, “And this is for electricity generated, sold to the grid, consumed but not paid for. It is not the opportunity we lost, it is actually the service we offered, the goods we sold and is unpaid for.”
The NDPHC boss further stated that his firm had started supplying power directly to eligible customers, as means of shoring up its revenue in order to be able to run the company.
Eligible customers are direct customers of generation companies and they do not get supply from the power distribution companies nor use the Discos assets. They are primarily customers of generation companies.