31 October 2016, Lagos – Despite being aware of criticisms against their performance post-privatisation, operators in the power industry have called for a mechanism that will reward their performance.
Although they also called for punishments where necessary, the firms asked the Federal Government to ensure that its Ministries, Departments and Agencies fulfilled their obligations to the electricity market by deducting the money for their bills from source.
The MDAs allegedly owe power firms billions of naira in electricity bills, with the operators recently putting their revenue shortfall post-privatisation at N809bn.
However, the power firms, in a communique made available to our correspondent on Sunday after the fourth quarter electricity market participants/key stakeholders’ interactive forum in Abuja, urged the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to ensure credible and flexible tariff assumptions for factors such as inflation and foreign exchange fluctuations.
The interactive forum was organised by the electricity market operator and was attended by power generation and distribution companies, Transmission Company of Nigeria, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc and the Association of Power Generation Companies.
On resolutions reached at the forum, the communique stated that the power sector operators agreed that “NERC needs to implement a mechanism for rewarding performance and punishing indiscipline.”
“Based on the current state of the electricity market, the regulator is to ensure credible tariff assumptions and respected methodology that ensure appropriate risk allocation to market participants and the government,” it stated.
The participants advised the regulator to grow the capacity to acquire its own data independently to facilitate information-based decision making for the management of the industry.
- Punch
