CBN, NBET Others Owe FG N190bn for Electricity Supply

The Federal Government owned power firm, the Niger Delta Power Holding Company has said that the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, NBET, and the Nigerian Electricity Liability Management Company owe the sum of N190bn for electricity supply.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, NDPHC, Chiedu Ugbo, revealed this to Newsmen on the sideline of a media briefing in Lagos on Monday.

According to him; the estimate was arrived at as a result of debts owed for electricity supply to the tune of N190 billion from 2015 till date.

He explained that the N190 billion debt, was owed by the government agencies from 2015 till May 2023.

He added that NBET owed the bulk of the debt, although he did not state the exact amount.

He also explained that Huge indebtedness by the market to NDPHC runs into hundreds of billions, N190 billion as of May for unpaid invoices. NDPHC is also not paid for availability but only as dispatched thereby depriving it of hundreds of billions since 2015 when the Transitional Electricity Market was declared, and the government has so far been denied revenue as high as N3trn.

Ugbo explained that the debt had made it difficult to meet some of its obligations such as operational expenditures including stock of spares, payment to gas suppliers, and others

He added that the company had to cut down costs, and had been able to sustain operations with internally generated revenue, coupled with interventions by the Federal Government, adding that the company needs “urgent private capital mobilisation”