Unpaid electricity bills: Our customers in Kwara are owing us N50bn, says IBEDC

The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) says it is owed over N50 billion in outstanding electricity bills by consumers in Kwara.

Busolami Tunwase, the company’s media relations lead, disclosed this while addressing journalists during a stakeholder meeting in Ilorin, on Tuesday.

Last month, the management of IBEDC warned its clients to pay their bills so that the company can meet its obligations to the market operator (MO) and other parties in the electricity supply industry.

On March 30, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) said defaulting electricity distribution companies (DisCos) were given a 60-day grace period (until next week) to fulfill their obligations.

Speaking on the issue, Tunwase said the market operator was planning to disconnect IBEDC’s feeders from the national grid due to poor remittances.

Providing a breakdown of the company’s revenue loss, she said electricity consumers in Jebba were at the top of the list with an outstanding of N25.8 billion, followed by those in the Baboko district with N18.9 billion debt, and those in the Challenge district with a debt of about N7.4 billion.

Tunwase said it was regrettable that the huge debt profile from Kwara was hindering the company from fulfilling its obligations to the market operator.

“But I can assure that when payments are made, service will definitely improve,” she said.

She urged Kwara residents to settle their outstanding electricity bills so that the IBEDC management could effectively serve them.

The DisCo’s media relation lead advised electricity consumers who intend to procure new prepaid meters to shun third parties so as not to be defrauded.

“IBEDC will soon be flooding the market with new meters,” Tunwase said.

On his part, Gabriel Eze, IBEDC’s regional manager, said a huge part of the outstanding debt was from government ministries, departments, and agencies, as well as the “Nigeria air force (NAF), navy, and army”.