A report by Bloomberg on Monday revealed that the Federal Government has given N1.5tn to the privatised power sector since the privatisation process in 2013.
According to the publication, this has still not improved the average power supplied to Nigerians within the period.
The report said, “Since 2015, the government has provided three bailouts via the central bank for the electricity sector, amounting to N1.5trn to plug revenue shortfalls.”
It noted that the reason for these credit packages is its refusal to increase tariffs.
Sighting data from the International Monetary Fund, Bloomberg asserted that Nigeria’s electricity tariffs should increase by at least 50 per cent to meet the cost of production.
Calling up data from The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission as well, Bloomberg notes that revenue collection in the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry stood at 64.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2019.
The distribution companies, who are at the final chain of the industry, remitted just 28 per cent of what it collected in the period, however.
NERC has already put the IMF observation into place, increasing electricity prices by between N10 to N14 in a rash of backdated charges applied in August 2019.
Writing on the state of power generation in the country, Bloomberg said households in Nigeria run 22m generators that supply over 24,000 megawatts of power – eight times more energy than is available on the national grid.
It said Nigeria’s average power supply for 2018 was 3,713mw, according to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Bloomberg observed that this is 10 times less than what Eskom’s South Africa produces.
The N701bn Partial Assurance Guarantee given by the CBN to ease the debt owed to the generation companies, the N213bn power stabilisation fund given to the generation, transition and distribution arms of the industry to settle long term debts and the N300bn loan made available to the power and aviation sectors, are three of the largest loans given to the electricity industry since 2013.
