News

Details of Billions of Dollars Debt Togo and Benin Owe Nigeria for Electricity – Federal Government Reports

Published by Tope Fakinlede on August 22nd, 2024.

Details of Billions of Dollars Debt Togo and Benin Owe Nigeria for Electricity – Federal Government Reports

The Federal Government of Nigeria has disclosed that Togo and Benin owe a total of $14.19 million for electricity supplied in the first quarter of 2024. This amount is due from four international bilateral customers: Para-SBEE and Transcorp-SBEE in Benin, and Mainstream-NIGELEC and Odukpani-CEET in Togo.

According to a report from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), none of these entities have made payments toward the outstanding invoices. Specifically, Para-SBEE owes $3.15 million, Transcorp-SBEE $4.46 million, Mainstream-NIGELEC $1.21 million, and Odukpani-CEET $5.36 million.

In addition to these international arrears, local bilateral customers also failed to remit payments totaling ₦1.86 million for services provided in the same period. Nevertheless, some customers did settle previous outstanding balances, with two international customers paying a combined $5.96 million and eight local customers contributing ₦505.71 million towards earlier debts.

NERC has indicated that it expects the market operator to enforce market rules to address the issue of payment delays by both local and international customers. The commission also noted that international consumers failed to remit about $51.26 million for electricity supplied in 2023 and an additional ₦7.61 billion from bilateral consumers.

The commission criticized this payment indiscipline and called for stricter enforcement by the Market Operator, an arm of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), responsible for managing Nigeria’s power exports.

An analysis of the industry data revealed that international customers did not pay $16.11 million, $11.97 million, $11.16 million, and $12.02 million for electricity supplied in each quarter of 2023, respectively.