AEDC, NERC to negotiate over licence cancellation notice

By Etuka Sunday

Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) and Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) are to further negotiation over the recent notice of licence cancellation.
Recall, power sector regulator, NERC on Wednesday last week notified eight (8) power distribution Companies (DisCos) on its intent to cancel their licences in 60 days after they accumulated N30.1billion energy invoice debts for July 2019.
The companies are Abuja DisCo, Enugu DisCo, Benin DisCo, Ikeja DisCo, Kano DisCo, Kaduna DisCo, P/Harcourt DisCo and Yola DisCo.
A noticed by the NERC’s Commissioner for Legal, Licencing and Compliance directed the eight companies to justify why their licences should not be withdrawn in two months.
The analysis of the July 2019 Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) shows that AEDC was supposed to remit 45 per cent of N7.2 billion, but remitted 30 per cent, which was N2.152 billion.
Nevertheless, the Managing Director, Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) Africa, the core investor in AEDC, Engr. Emmanuel Katepa said, AEDC and NERC would return to negotiation table in order to address the concerns.
Speaking to Peoples Daily in an exclusive chart, Engr. Katepa who expressed shock over the notice said, the parties were already in the process of negotiating the issues before the letter came
He however assured that effort would be intensified to permanently resolve the issues.
“Yes, we did receive a letter from NERC earlier in the week, it is just a bit of a surprise because we are right now in the process of negotiating the few of the issues in the order that was given so we will continue that negotiation although the letter is already out, but we will engage with the commission to deal with some of the matters that we have communicated previously with them,” he said.
On Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), he said, “we are also in the process of getting ours ready, I believe within the next week we should have submitted it to the commission. It is currently undergoing review at Executive Management level.
“We are making sure it reflects the current reality and not work on the basis of the conditions in 2013 and the parameters that were set then. It is important that we update those parameters to today conditions,” he said.