The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC, has blamed the inability to settle its indebtedness to electricity generating companies, GenCos on challenges bedeviling the power sector.
The company's Director of Corporate Services, Mr. Abimbola Odubiyi, said in an interview in Abuja that the debts were caused by systemic problems, but assured that steps were being taken to address the matter.
His words.
“We are supposed to pass the increase on to our customers but we cannot. So that is where we have the shortfall. It is a systemic problem, it is not a deliberate problem and not that the discos do not want to pay the GenCos the full price.
"For our company, we are paying our obligations, but have a shortfall. We have a shortfall on our obligations to the GenCos just like every DISCOs. But it is a systemic industry problem which is aggravated by the fact that every month the cost for the GENCOs is increasing due to the Naira-Dollar exchange rate whereas we cannot increase our own tariff every month.
"The distribution end in Nigeria faces a lot of challenges, first the issue of customers have not paid or are reluctant to pay; the issue of theft is very rampant; by-passing and tempering with meter, some refuse to pay outright, then the problem of vandalization of our equipment, including cables, feeder-pillars usually it is very rampant, people steal our cables, feeder-pillars and other assets.
"On top of that the generation we are expecting to sell, we are not getting enough. So it is the more generation we have the more money we make. This also come to the problem of GENCOs. We are not getting enough generation required.
"We have the cost and it is fixed, and if we can get enough generation, we will be able to make more money to meet up with all our market obligations, and if our customers are paying and nobody is vandalizing our assets or people are not stealing the electricity.”
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment