Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs lose about N20 billion monthly across the country due to ”collection gap” an official has said.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Chief Corporate Service Officer, Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company, KADECO, Uday Mishra disclosed this in Kaduna, during an interactive session on the various challenges surrounding DISCOs across the country.
According to Mr Mishra, the major challenge as regards electricity distribution in the country is the non-payment of bills by about 60 per cent consumers.
“All DISCOs are surviving hardly because they have just 40 per cent of legal consumers on their billing net while the majority of consumers are involved in bypassing, theft, non-payment of bills and direct hooking.”
He however regretted that honest consumers suffer infrequent electricity supply because they have to subsidise other non-payers and electricity thieves.
”We call on consumers to take care of their duties by paying bills and disengaging in any kind of electricity theft, the company disconnects as last resort which is also costly and time-wasting,” he said.
Mr Mishra called on the government to subsidise electricity tariff for agriculture-related projects, low-income groups and the poor masses residing at the slums.
The Head of Compliance, KADECO, Lawal Lawal explained that the company is only entitled to 8 per cent of the power generated daily in the country, which it distributes to Kaduna, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kebbi States.
“We have no option than to ration supply because electricity is solely dependent on gas in Nigeria. Our total demand is 600 megawatts but we rarely receive 300 for distribution daily.
“Kaduna even gets more supply due to high population and other economic activities when compared to its the other states, yet, the supply is poor,” Mr Lawal said.
He attributed the low distribution of electricity to little supply from the source, adding that, the poor revenue collected from consumers affects the company’s health.
