NERC records negative account balance

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) raked in N2.217 billion in the second and third quarters of 2017, but made expenditure of N2.42bn, indicating a deficit, a report has shown.

The 3rd quarter report of 2017 which the commission made available only last Friday showed that it was hit by paucity of funds during the period.

A breakdown of the N2.2bn revenue for Q2 and Q3 indicates that NERC got N1.225bn in Q3, comprising N1.065bn from operational levy (market charges) and N160 million from other sources.

It said the accrued revenue was 19 per cent higher than what it got in the second quarter which, from our analysis, was N992.250m. While it made operational expenses of N1.22bn in Q3, it realised N1.2bn in Q2.

The report, which also captured the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) customer service quality, showed that 25,264 complaints were not resolved in the third quarter of 2017.

The unresolved complaints represented 24 per cent of the total 109,048 from electricity users to the various DisCos.

NERC issued 9 licences, 5 permits in Q3

The issued commission nine on-grid generation licences capable of delivering 2,738 megawatts (MW) of electricity. It also issued five permits for captive power generation for 71.1MW. With these, NERC said as at Q3, it issued 93 on-grid licences, 29 off-grid licences and 10 Independent Electricity Distribution Network (IEDN) licences.

On accidents, 25 deaths and 15 injuries involving both employees of the companies and third parties were recorded in the third quarter.

The report also records improvement in health and safety performance of the power industry operators during Q3 as against Q2 when 37 deaths and 26 injuries were recorded.