Togo and Benin Owe Nigeria $14 Million for Electricity – Federal Government
Nigeria’s Federal Government has disclosed that Togo and Benin Republic owe the country a cumulative sum of $14.19 million for electricity supplied in the first quarter of 2024. This revelation was made in a report by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), which detailed the outstanding payments by four international bilateral customers who receive electricity from Nigerian power generation companies.
According to the report, none of the international customers, which include Para-SBEE and Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic, as well as Mainstream-NIGELEC and Odukpani-CEET in Togo, made any payments against the invoices issued to them. The breakdown of the debts is as follows: Para-SBEE in Benin Republic owes $3.15 million, Transcorp-SBEE owes $4.46 million, Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo owes $1.21 million, and Odukpani-CEET in Togo owes $5.36 million.
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The report also highlighted that bilateral customers within Nigeria failed to remit a cumulative invoice of N1.86 million for services rendered in the same period. However, NERC noted that some payments were made during the quarter by both local and international customers towards settling outstanding debts from previous quarters. Specifically, $5.96 million was paid by two international customers, and N505.71 million was received from eight local bilateral customers for debts incurred before the first quarter of 2024.
The commission expressed concerns over what it termed “payment indiscipline” among local and international bilateral customers. It called on the Market Operator, a unit of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) responsible for managing Nigeria’s power exports, to enforce market rules to address this issue.
This development follows a previous report in May that revealed international consumers failed to remit approximately $51.26 million to Nigeria for electricity supplied in 2023. Additionally, domestic bilateral power consumers did not remit about N7.61 billion to the Nigerian power sector during the same period. NERC has condemned this persistent non-remittance, urging the Market Operator to take decisive actions to curb the trend and ensure prompt payments for services rendered.
