By Musa Adamu
Abuja
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has descended on the electricity distribution companies (DISCOS) over their attitudes to compliance to their reporting obligations to the regulator.
This is the first time the commission is assessing the utilities on their key performance indicators (KPIs) since they took about six months ago.
With just three out of the 11 DISCOS meeting up with the directive, the commission considered it a total disregard of its directives and warned that it would soon enforce the relevant section of the EPSR Act (2005) on reporting obligation.
NERC expressed reservations on the compliance level of DISCOS in the reporting and submission of data that would allow for proper network data assessment by the commission.
The reporting obligation states that any person who fails or refuses to furnish a return or to supply information in the manner and time prescribed, or gives false or incomplete information commits an offence and is liable on conviction.
Chairman of the commission, Dr. Sam Amadi, disclosed that the CEOs had been told at their April meeting to comply with the commission’s request on submission of baseline statistics on distribution assets they took over.
He there was a need for network data assessment, amongst which was to establish a data bank of all existing distribution assets, to monitor, track and report performance of the DISCOS with respect to strengthening of distribution systems and capacity expansion.
He said a similar exercise with the transmission and generation companies would soon be carried out. “Discos are to note their performances and make necessary adjustments to ensure timely and accurate reporting. Similar exercises would be conducted for transmission and generation companies,” he said.
