Discos remit less than 25% of their market bill – TCN

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has accused the Electricity distribution Companies of remitting a paltry 25 percent of their market bill.

Tom Uwah, director, Transmission Service Provider (TSP) at TCN stated this while defending the charge that the company represents the weak link in the power sector value chain at the recently concluded Power Nigeria Conference held in Lagos last week.

“TCN should not be seen as the weak link in the power sector, our operations are very critical and of a sensitive nature. TCN has been struggling to fulfil its obligations despite very difficult conditions. We are not even getting up to 25 percent of wheeling charges,” said Uwah.

He further said that grid infrastructure requires huge capital outlay to improve capacity and the current liquidity issue in the sector continue to hamper their efforts.

Uwah also said that TCN is struggling to wheel out power in the midst of operational and environmental challenges. He said vandalism of transmission infrastructure was a major problem and crave the assistance of security agencies to curtail the trend.

BusinessDay sought out Sam Nwaire, the chief executive officer of Eko Distribution Company who also gave a presentation at the event but he refuted the claim.

“I don’t think that figure is correct, I can’t comment on other discos but I am aware that Eko Electricity Distribution Company pays at least up to 75 percent of her market bill.”

Nwaire in his presentation at the conference called for a market reflective tariff reiterating industry operators’ complaint that the present tariff is insufficient to meet operational challenges.

“What we have is a tariff that cannot cover our cost. We barely collect enough to cover maintenance of the network and pay market bill. After settling these charges or part of them, there is little left to pay salaries,” he said.

According to John Ayodele, deputy manager of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, power studies show that to realise the dream of attaining 20,000 megawatts of power supply, Nigeria needs to invest N7.5 billion over the course of five years.

“What we have realised so far since this privatisation journey began in 2013 is about N3billion. We still have huge shortfalls and this means we have to look elsewhere and improve operations.”

ISAAC ANYAOGU

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