Abuja DisCo to engage NERC over licence withdrawal
Investors in the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) said they will continue to engage with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) after the regulator notified them of intent to withdraw their licences over energy payment default.
Abuja DisCo was among the eight DisCos that NERC gave 60 days since last week to prove why their licences should not be canceled in 60 days for not paying N30 billon energy debt. Daily Trust however reports that the 11 DisCos are experiencing cash crunch. They had requested NERC to implement over six tariff reviews which is yet to be done.
The Managing Director of CEC Africa, the core investor in AEDC, Engr. Emmanuel Katepa, confirmed the receipt of the NERC notice but expressed shock as “the DisCo was already mediating with the Commission.”
He said, “Yes, we did receive a letter from NERC earlier in the week, it is just a bit of a surprise because we are right now in the process of negotiating few of the issues in the order that was given so we will continue that negotiation.
“We will engage with the commission to deal with some of the matters that we have communicated previously with them,” he said.
Engr. Katepa also spoke about the plans by AEDC to submit a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which is required by the Commission in its ongoing major review of the Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO).
Katepa said, “We are in the process of getting ours ready, I believe within the next week we should have submitted it to the commission. It is currently undergoing review at Executive Management level.
“We are making sure it reflects the current reality and not work on the basis of the conditions in 2013 and the parameters that were set then. It is important that we update those parameters to today conditions,” he said.