Metering, overbilling top customers’ complaints — NERC report

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission says it received 1,220,245 complaints through its customers’ complaints units in 2023, adding that metering and overbilling of power users accounted for the highest complaints.

According to a report by the commission on Monday, the complaints bothered on metering, overbilling, disconnection, service interruption, delay in reconnection, load shedding, and voltage interruptions, among others.

“The total number of complaints received across all Discos (distribution companies) in 2023 was 1,220,245. Ibadan and Port Harcourt Discos received the highest complaints (207,216 and 205,054 representing 16.98 per cent and 16.80 per cent of total complaints respectively). In comparison, Aba and Yola Discos had the lowest complaints (4,029 and 11,930 representing 0.33 per cent and 0.98 per cent of the total complaints respectively).

“Cumulatively, 1,156,553 were resolved yielding a resolution rate of 94.78 per cent. The most common issues among the complaints received by Discos during the year were metering (53.09 per cent), billing (16.30 per cent), and service interruption (8.16 per cent). These three (complaints categories cumulatively accounted for 77.55 per cent of the total complaints in the year,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the report added that the electricity distribution companies in Nigeria raked in N1.07tn in 2023.

NERC maintained that the total revenue collected by the Discos from customers in 2023 was N1.07tn out of the total bill of N1.46tn to customers.

This, it was said, left an outstanding balance of N385.73bn, translating to a collection efficiency of 73.64 per cent.

According to the NERC, this implies that for every N100 worth of energy billed to customers by DisCos in 2023, approximately N26.36 was not recovered from customers.

The regulator maintained that the low collection efficiency combined with billing inefficiency has continued to adversely impact the financial liquidity of the industry, ultimately limiting the electricity supply industry’s ability to grow and attract investment.

During the period under review, only the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company had a collection efficiency above 90 per cent, which the regulator said can be partly attributable to the fact that it leads the DisCos in terms of overall metering rate (72.54 per cent) as of the end of 2023.

The IKEDC was followed by Eko and Abuja Discos with collection efficiencies of 84.31 per cent and 80.19 per cent respectively.

However, Yola Disco had the lowest collection efficiency of 43.56 per cent, according to the report.

In the year, the Federal Government paid N610bn as electricity subsidy.

The NERC stated the cumulative Minimum Remittance Obligation for Discos was 52.92 per cent, being N685.69bn out of N1.29tn invoices issued by the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, meaning that “the government incurred a subsidy obligation of N610.06bn (47.08 per cent of total NBET invoices).”

The report added that an MRO-adjusted invoice of N858bn was issued by NBET and Market Operator for energy costs and administrative services to DisCos in 2023.

“The Discos remitted a total of N706.73bn resulting in a deficit of N151.30bn during the year – this underpayment is known as “market shortfall”. Based on the above, the gross DisCo remittance rate to the upstream segment for 2023 was 82.37 per cent,” the report disclosed.