AEDC Paid 45% Of Energy Bill Amidst Liquidity In 2016-Top Official

Despite prevailing harsh economic realities in the country and the liquidity crisis in the power sector, Abuja electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) made an average payment of 45 per cent of its monthly energy received bill and rolled out 116,000 meters in 2016, a top official has revealed.Disclosing this to journalists in Abuja, Engr. Emmanuel Katepa who is the Managing Director/CEO of Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC), a core investor in the DisCo, commended the overall performance of the company while admitting the negative impact of the recession and the dollar-Naira movement.Engr. Katepa noted that from June 2016, the energy bill presented by Generation Companies (GenCos) to the DisCos increased significantly thereby dropping the value paid for energy to 45 per cent.He said: In terms of payment for energy consumption, AEDC may not be above, but better than most of the rest. It is a relative performance because we are only managing to meet 45 per cent of the bill.The monthly generation bill to DisCos has been going up. We actually recorded a performance growth without tariff adjustment and that is tough, Katepa explained.Giving the breakdown on metering, Katepa said Abuja DisCo installed 86,000 meters for customers under the Credited Advanced Payment for Metering Initiative (CAPMI) and then rolled out 30,000 free meters last year.He said as a result of the fluctuating foreign exchange,, one of the two contracts it had with foreign investors failed.We had some decent progress in the year. Unfortunately due to the forex, one of the contracts failed to come through on the metering programme but the other is running but at a slower pace as we had anticipated 80,000 meters. We have so far secured 30,000>He noted that the drop in revenue along with the recession affected its investment pace as some of the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) had to be severely cut off.As an investor, am not pushing any hope for getting dividend out of my investment now maybe till the sector mature and the macro economy improves say by 2021 or 2022, if things continue the way they are right now, he said.To curb the many complaints against the estimated billing by yet unmetered customers, Engr. Katepa said There are some short term measures we have put in place to tackle the many complaints with estimation. We are using metered transformer that serve about 500 homes to determine the actual quantum of energy consumed by such community. This we believe will help to raise trustworthiness from our customers.While appealing to all AEDC customers to play their part well by paying their bills as at when due, Katepa advised that the government continue to moderate and ensure a growth encouraging environment until the company is fully mature.
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