Electricity generation companies, also known as Gencos, has raised the alarm over the liquidity challenges facing them, which puts their current shortfall at over N1 trillion.
The Executive Secretary, Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC), Barrister Joy Ogaji, said this on Monday. She noted that that the N701billion Power Assurance Guarantee, which the Federal Executive Council approved for the companies in the first quarter of 2017, has been exhausted.
She explained that there was a high hope that the Federal Government would make the electricity distribution companies (DisCos) pay at least 80% of their invoices but the government has achieved this.
“The major problem that the generation companies are facing now is that of liquidity. The N701billion is over. The government has not succeeded in making the Discos to pay at least 80% of their invoices. The N701billion got finished in December. We don’t know how the Gencos will survive,” she said
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She noted that the major problem confronting the companies is that of liquidity and not gas supply, restating that the Gencos have not exhausted their present allocation of gas to power.
According to Ogaji, the companies are faced with the major challenge of the inability to pay for gas. “We have neither been able to pay for gas nor provide the guarantee,” she added.
It will be recalled that the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola had mentioned that, with the Power Assurance Guarantee payment to Gencos, their monthly payment had risen 20% to 80%, which also upped their production to 7,000mw.
While the Managing Director, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Mr. Mohammed Gur Usman had assured Nigerians that the penalty for gas flaring by the Department of Petroleum Resources ( DPR) would lead improve power supply in the country, Ogaji insisted that liquidity is the main problem of the companies, not gas.