The electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, yesterday, announced that they have recorded an increase in revenue collection to the tune of N127 billion in the first quarter of 2020.
The companies, which disclosed this in a statement through the umbrella body, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, in Abuja, said, the collections account for over 10 percent improvement in its energy revenue collection efficiency in the period under review
The ANED in the statement issued by the Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Barrister Sunday Oduntan, said: “The collection milestone in the first quarter of 2020 hit a new record with N127 billion revenue collection increase, which is above 10 percent improvement over the same quarter in 2019.”
While the DISCOs were billed N187bn for 5,768 Gigawatts hour, GWh, ANED said the DISCOs, through heightened revenue collection drive, collected N127bn at 68 percent collection efficiency rate in the first three months of 2020.
However, the DISCOs decried the slight reduction of the energy they received during the period to supply to customers, contrary to the expectations projected in the 2019 minor review.
Oduntan while further stating the improvement in the DISCOs’ performance, noted that in the past 12 months, DISCOs improved the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry, NESI, yearly collection by N39 billion, reaching a total of N485 billion, with a collection efficiency of 69%.
He said, “The Aggregate Technical, Commercial and Collection (ATC&C) losses continue to decrease due to a better performance of the DISCos only. In this regard, if DISCOs were receiving more power in the good commercial areas, the ATC&C losses would decrease even more substantially.”
A breakdown of the performance improvement captured in their presentation at the Public Hearing by the Senate Committee on Power on Tuesday, showed that power generation slightly dipped. While the DISCOs received 26,565GWh of energy between April 2018 and March 2019, the energy quantum only rose by 0.1 percent to 26,590GWh from April 2019 to March 2020.
Despite this lack of increase in power generation, ANED said the DISCOs reduced their ATC&C losses by two percent within the period. In 2018, the average ATC&C dropped to 20 percent, and by March 2020, it had dropped to 18 percent.
The records further show that from April 2019 and March 2020, the ATC&C losses stood at 43.3%, dropping from 47.2% in the previous 12 months.
ANED said “The collection efficiency rate from April 2018 to March 2019 was at 66% and the ATC&C losses was 47.2% because the DISCOs collected N446bn revenue from expected energy bill collection of N672bn during the period.
“It increased its energy bill collection efficiency from 66% in 2018 to 69% as of March 2020, giving details of this.
“The DISCOs’ bill for 21,894GWh of energy was equivalent to N705bn between April 2019 and March 2020. They were able to work harder and collected N485bn of that bill which is 69% collection efficiency rate, and dropped the ATC&C losses to 43.3%.”