The Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria (NDPHC) has said that over N190 billion was owed the company for electricity generated since inception of the company.
Mr Chiedu Ugbo, Managing Director of NDPHC, said in Abuja at an investigative hearing, organised by the Senate Committee on Power.
The investigative hearing titled “Power Sector Recovery Plan and the Impact of COVID-19 pandemic was designed to evolve measures to profer solutions to challenges in the sector.
‘The overarching challenge for NDPHC is the low market remittance leading to
huge indebtedness to NDPHC.
“As at May 31, over N190 billion was owed to NDPHC for electricity generated from our power plants to the National Grid.
“The breakdown of the indebtedness is as follows:
Legacy debt period: 2011 – 2013 N24,488,365,072.
Interim Rule Period: 2013 – 2015 N6,796,473,564.
TEM (NBET) : 2015 – 2020 N281,101,92,728.
SUB-TOTAL N312,386.741.364.
“less payment to gas suppliers: N119,393.845,935.
“This amounted to a total of N192,992,895,429 owed NDPHC.”
Ugbo also listed regulatory issues affecting the NDPHC to include the provision of low tariff to its generating stations compared with other thermal stations in the country.
“NDPHC’s tariff is fixed at N18.4
per KWh as against N24 per KWh for by other Independent Power Plants(IPPs).
On gas suppliers to the company,he said : “Gas was paid for at N306 to one dollars whereas the market rate is at N360 to one dollars.”
According to him, the difference has been the cause for dispute with
indigenous gas suppliers.
He said the company records low revenue generation due to poor dispatch of electricity generated and low remittance from the electricity market .
On transmission constraints,Ugbo said : “NDPHCs available capacity is over 3,000MW but is dispatched at 800MW and below by the System Operator(SO) because of load rejection by Distribution Companies (Discos.)
According to him, inadequate dispatch of power generated grossly affects NDPHC revenue generation capacity.
He, however, noted that the issues described presents new challenges and immediate opportunities for growth.
“At NDPHC, we recognize the strong potentials for growth with increasing
need for added investments in the power sector to spurn and sustain this
potential.
“Having played a pivotal role in the current increase in installed capacity of
close to 13GW in the last 10 years.
“NDPHC will continue as part of its medium-to long-term vision, to play a role in end-to-end infrastructure development in the sector.”
He said the next set of projects across the value chain by the company would further improve capacity in generation and transmission networks in collaboration with the state-owned Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
Chairman of the Committee, Sen.Gabriel Suswam (PDP Benue )said the investigative hearing was based on the unfortunate experience in the sector after privatisation.
He said the essence of public hearing was to identify the challenges in the sector and proffer lasting solution .
He said : “You will discovered from what we have heard for the past three days that there is a serious misalignment in the power sector.
” The reason why, in spite of the huge expenditure, we have been unable to achieve anything because there is no proper coordination.
“We have listen to presentations from the government side and the operators and we have seen that there is no alignment anywhere and that is the problem.
“The blame game among them has to stop.
“Once there is an alignment and proper coordination, that yes, if we generate 13,000 megawatts, and transmission is able to transmit at least 10,000 megawatts, and Discos are able to absorb the 10,000.
By Anthony Areh
