Mkpoikana Udoma
01 June 2018, Sweetcrude, Port Harcourt — The management of the Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHED, has denied owing power generation companies the sum of N3.5billion for the month of February 2018, contrary to reports in the media.
Manager, Corporate Communications of PHED, Mr. John Onyi, said a national daily had last week reported that the company together with Yola and Kaduna Discos were owing Gencos N33 billion for the month of February.
Onyi explained that the company would not have bothered about the report, but it had to set the record straight in a bid not to send wrong signals to its stakeholders and members of the public.
He said for the month of February 2018, the company duly mandated its bankers to make the usual monthly transfer to NBET since April 2018, which was acknowledged even before the stipulated deadline for the payment.
“The attention of Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company, PHED, has been drawn to a publication widely circulated in both hard copy and online in the Daily Trust Newspaper of 22nd May 2018, with the headline ‘DisCos owe GenCos N33Bn in February 2018.’
“The attention of PHED was specifically drawn to the third paragraph where the publication said inter alia that the three DisCos without any remittance, according to the data, are Kaduna DisCo with N3.30bn invoice; Port Harcourt DisCo, N3.75bn; and Yola DisCo, N1.63bn.
“Ordinarily, PHED would not have reacted to the unfounded publication as published by the newspaper but in order not to send a wrong signal to the reading public and indeed our stakeholders, it is better to set the record straight because it is our belief that facts are sacrosanct.
“For the avoidance of doubt, a duly signed mandate for instant transfer for February 2018 invoicing was presented to our bankers on 27th April 2018 prior to the stipulated deadline for the payment. It was acknowledged immediately as always the case for such instruction.”
The management of PHED, however, urged media houses to verify stories from all parties before publication, saying that information on the power sector has far-reaching effects on the value chain and a wrong piece of publication could infer negative perceptions.
