By Ignatius Okorocha
The Niger Delta Power Holding Company of Nigeria (NDPHC) has said it is being owed over N190 billion for electricity generated.
Managing Director,NDPHC,Mr Chiedu Ugbo, made the disclosure on Tuesday 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 elvove measures to proffer solutions to challenges in the sector.
Ugbo said: “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 NDLHC.”
Specifically, he 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, “NDPHC 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 spur 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).
Earlier, 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 urge the stakeholders to be factual in their presentations.
Among stakeholders in the sector that made presentations at the investigative hearing includes the Market Operator,(MO) an arm of TCN, Association of Electricity Distributors and and Association Of Power Generation, Nigerian Electricity Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC)
