The Federal Government has announced that Togo and Benin Republic owe Nigeria a total of $14.19 million for electricity supplied in the first quarter of 2024.
This information was disclosed in a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which noted the non-payment of electricity bills by four international bilateral customers supplied by Nigerian power generating companies (GenCos).
The report identified the following foreign entities and their respective debts: Para-SBEE in Benin Republic owes $3.15 million, Transcorp-SBEE in Benin owes $4.46 million, Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo owes $1.21 million, and Odukpani-CEET in Togo owes $5.36 million.
According to NERC, these companies did not make any payments towards the invoices issued by the Market Operator for services provided during the quarter. Additionally, local bilateral customers in Nigeria also failed to remit payments for a cumulative invoice of $1.88 million for services in Q1 2024. However, some payments were made during the same period towards outstanding invoices from previous quarters.
The report noted that international customers paid a total of $5.96 million, and local bilateral customers contributed N505.71 million towards settling pre-2024/Q1 debts.
NERC expressed concern about the situation, urging the Market Operator to enforce market rules to address what it termed “payment indiscipline” among both local and international customers.
This issue follows earlier reports from May 2024, indicating that international consumers had not paid about $51.26 million for electricity exported in 2023. The Federal Government also revealed that bilateral power consumers had failed to remit approximately N7.61 billion to the Nigerian power sector last year.
NERC condemned these payment failures and stressed the need for decisive action by the Market Operator, a division of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), to address persistent payment defaults.
Analysis of industry data showed 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.
