The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has disclosed that there will be new sanctions for Discos that failed to meet up some contractual agreements with customers and regulators.

In an Order on Performance Monitoring Framework for all the DisCos, it said this will affect seven issues that would be used to assess their performance.

“This includes energy off-take relative to partial contracted capacity; revenue recovery rate; compliance with reporting of a uniform system of accounts; compliance with API feeder streaming; compliance with the order on capping of estimated bills; compliance with the implementation of forum decisions; and compliance with service standards for the resolution of complaints received through the NERC contact centre and NERC headquarters,” it said.

The order which was signed by NERC’s chairman, Sanusi Garbo, and Commissioner Legal, Licensing & Compliance, Dafe C. Akpeneye, added that the new order sought to hold the top management of each DisCos accountable for their compliance with reporting requirements and implementation of directives of the commission in line with the terms and conditions of the utility.

“This will Drive increased operational performance from DisCos thereby improving energy delivery to customers under their franchise area,” it said.

The order stipulated that failure to off-take up to 95 per cent of available nominations in any month will attract issuance of a rectification directive.

But the failure of any DisCo to off-take up to 95 per cent of available nominations in two of the three months in any quarter will attract a downward adjustment of DisCos guaranteed Admin OpEx by 5 per cent for the next quarter.

Also, for any instance of a customer overbilled, 10 per cent of the naira value of the total over-billing for the period will be deducted from the DisCo’s annual Admin OpEx allowance during the next tariff review, and credit adjustment for overbilled customers.

“If the energy overbilled is greater than 20 per cent of the allowed cap or the number of customers overbilled represent is greater than 20 per cent of unmetered customer base, the Commission may take other enforcement actions including the withdrawal of the KYL of the Head of Billing or the officer responsible for the billing function in the utility.

“For non-compliance to the resolution of complaints through the NERC contact centre or headquarters after the expiration of timelines in the CPR, the DisCo would be made to pay fines within the first month -billing: N10,000 per day; disconnection: N2,000/day; interruption: N2,000/day; metering: N1,000/day; delay in connection: N1,000/day; Voltage: N1,000/day,” it said. (Daily Trust)

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