Politically speaking, it was shocking when the Tinubu-led Nigerian government disclosed that electricity subsidy gulped N135billion in three months because the word ‘subsidy’ has gained currency in its usage in Nigeria in recent times.

 

The administration claimed that this amount was its contribution to plug revenue generation shortfall in the power sector in the second quarter of 2023 and it increased from the N36billion to N135.2billion.

 

This fact was given by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in its quarterly report. In the report, the total revenue collected by all Distribution Companies

(DISCO) was N267.8billion as against the N354.61 that was billed to customers.

 

An impressive part of the report states that “the DISCOs overall collection efficiency increased by 6.79 percentage points from 68.75 percent recorded in 2023/Q1. While the total collections increased by 8.41 percent (compared to N247bn in 2023/Q1), the total billings declined by -1.33 percent (compared to N359.3bn in 2023/Q1)”.

There is no gain-saying the fact that the power sector in Nigeria is far from meeting the energy needs of Nigerians and efficiency is very low in the sector hence revenue generation is not matching up with services rendered and an area where this is obvious is

 

in the provision of meters to customers and if measuring devices to determine the exact volume of electricity consumed are inadequate, efficiency in the sector will be adversely affected.

Another area of low efficiency is the high level of technical and commercial losses that should be reduced by improving on it, which will in turn lead to improved revenue generation. This can be achieved by improving the retail networks and promptly attending to complaints by their customers.


With regards to the citizens, we must resist the temptation to indulge in energy theft by bypassing our meters and the authority concerned should arrest and prosecute offenders in line with the extant laws.

If this is achieved, the offer of subsidy by the government to the sector will come down drastically thereby freeing money for other developmental purposes.