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Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, NDPHC, Chiedu
Ugbo, revealed this 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.
The N190 billion debt, he said 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.
“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 NDPHC 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,” he said.
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
“Since we are being owed, we can’t also pay our gas
suppliers and they too won’t supply us gas. Gas is what we use in generating
power, and if we can’t generate; we can’t sell. The name plate capacity of our
ten plants is 4000MW. We have the capacity to generate as much as 2000MW but we
currently generate 975MW,” he said.
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”.
“Despite the interventions and other FGN initiatives in
networks, liquidity challenges persist. It is obvious that a lot more
investment is required in transmission and government alone cannot do this.
There is therefore need for urgent private capital mobilisation, and exploring
independent transmission projects starting with Gencos as investors. With
NDPHC’s track record, this is possible within the shortest possible time” he
said.
While speaking, Executive Director, Generation, Engr.
Abdullahi Kassim explained that the Company hoped to resolve the challenges
through its bilateral contracts ‘Light-up Nigeria Initiative’, a programme
designed to leverage its generation assets to deliver reliable supply to
eligible (maximum demand) customers, electricity distribution companies, and
third-party project developers that aggregate load and provide a reliable
supply to bulk customers.
“To underscore the importance of this programme, it is
directly led by NDPHC’s Chairman, and Vice President, Sen. Kashim Shettima. The
approach is to focus more on sales to bulk purchasers and developers that
aggregate load because of the volume of power that can be sold on each such
project (subject to the proper payment security being in place). The initiative
offers a sure path to being able to sell a significant part of NDPHC’s
commercially stranded capacity to light up businesses and homes,” he said.
The goal of the ‘Light Up Nigeria Initiative’, he said is to
provide more than 97 per cent generated power to the masses.