NERC Repositions for Greater Compliance
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has drawn a comprehensive strategy of ensuring greater compliance with its Regulations and Orders by operators in the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI).
The Commission further noted the imperative for closer monitoring of the performance of its licensees and the ethical conduct of the respective managements. This is in line with best practice in a regulated utility market.
The Commission reviewed the progress of customer enumeration exercise (including asset tagging) by the electricity distribution companies and reaffirmed its determination to ensure this is completed within the stipulated timelines in the Work Plan. This is on account of the significant benefits towards the reduction of commercial and collection losses in the industry.
Other areas of focus for the management of the Commission during the retreat included the urgency to invest in resolving bottlenecks at transmission/distribution interface points, incentivizing a sustainable growth in energy delivered to consumers nationwide and an expedited resolution of customer complaints.
The Commission reaffirmed its commitment to provide a fair and firm regulatory environment but with a warning that necessary enforcement measures would be pursued on defaulters in the industry.
In another development, NERC has, vide its Order No NERC/181/2018 of June 19th 2018, suspended the Board of Directors and other key management staff of Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) on account of the company’s default in the recovery of an inappropriate shareholder loan of N6 billion granted to Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Group (IEDMG) Ltd by the utility.
IEDMG is the core investor in IEBDC following the privatisation of electricity distribution companies by the Federal Government. The loan was granted by IBEDC from funds released to all DisCos by the CBN under the Nigeria Electricity Market Stabilisation Funds (NEMSF) for the purpose of improving the networks and reducing aggregate technical, commercial and collection losses.
The Commission had earlier fined IBEDC a sum of N50million on the 18th September 2017 for non-compliance with Order No NERC/173/2017 directing the company to fully recover the outstanding sum of N5.7bn being the balance of the loan granted by the utility to IEDMG.
