Power Outage: TCN Accuses KEDCO Of Blackmail

Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has accused KEDCO of misinforming the public on the true situation of happenings with its suspension in the electricity market.

TCN said it is important to state that KEDCO was never singled out for suspension, but was sanctioned alongside Port-Harcourt, Ikeja, Enugu and Eko DiSCos who have all attended to their debt, except KEDCO.

TCN General Manager  (Public Affairs) Mrs Ndidi Mbah stated this on Monday in a release reacting to statement credited to KEDCO on the lingering crisis.

TCN said it would not want to join issues with KEDCO since KEDCO had taken the matter to court.

It noted that as at May 2019, shortly before the Market Operator started enforcing 100% payment of Service Providers Invoices, KEDCO owed the Service Providers N23billion and KEDCO intentionally leaves this out in its narratives published in various newspapers.

‘’Just as it intentionally leaves out the fact that as at 2015, it owed the Service Provider’s a total of N8.27 billion even as it claims that it is being owed N3.2 billion. The so-called imbalance of N3.2 billion is outstanding on them from the Market. TCN is NOT indebted to KEDCO,’’ said the statement.

The statement said from February 2015 to December 2015, for a whole year, KEDCO refused to pay for any of its Service Provider invoices despite the fact that it was collecting monies belonging to the entire market from electricity consumers within their franchise areas.

It noted that this pattern of indebtedness and flagrant disregard for rules continued to increase their indebtedness over the years.

The statement read:’’ On the Imbalance Mechanism used before TEM declaration in 2015, it provides that Discos that took energy more than their MYTO allocation compensates those that took less than their own allocation. KEDCO seized this opportunity to game the Market by consistently refusing to take a load, so as to earn the imbalance payment. ‘’

‘’Faced with the reality of KEDCO’s antics, the Regulator stopped the Imbalance Payment in 2015. This stopped compensation payment to inefficient Disco’s that lack the requisite experience to manage a power distribution company.’’

TCN added that the suspension of KEDCO is in line with the Market Rules provided for complete disconnection of KEDCO from the Grid but the Market Operator only disconnected two (2) feeders.

It noted that KEDCO operates in three States Kano, Katsina and the Jigawa States and TCN has a total of twelve (12) transmission substations with fifty-four (54) 33kV feeders through which it makes electricity available to KEDCO for delivery to customers in the three states. The only two (2) feeders disconnected are the ones supplying KEDCO Head office.

‘’In the Leadership newspaper on-line publication of 2nd September 2019, KEDCO submitted that it resorts to mass disconnection of its customers as a strategy to collect the outstanding revenue owed by customers. This is a self-confession that KEDCo has refused to distribute the power transmitted to it by TCN to its customers.’’

Daily average load availability in TCN’s substations, as well as the daily average load off-take by KEDCO for two (2) weeks, are listed in the table below.

LOAD ALLOCATION AND ACTUAL LOAD (MW) UPTAKE BY KANO DISCO
DATE	LOAD ALLOCATION BASED ON MYTO (MW)	KANO ACTUAL (MW)
8/13/2019	350.99	244.83
14/08/2019	370.67	225.56
15/08/2019	370.67	218.60
8/16/2019	370.67	213.21
8/17/2019	341.85	218.01
8/18/2019	341.09	181.95
8/19/2019	340.65	136.83
8/20/2019	348.76	164.39
8/21/2019	359.38	128.29
8/22/2019	359.38	154.17
8/23/2019	364.76	132.90
8/24/2019	362.46	134.23
8/25/2019	362.46	108.89
8/26/2019	342.78	140.65
8/27/2019	342.78	128.53
8/28/2019	342.78	147.46
8/29/2019	351.45	136.37
8/30/2019	237.19	111.03
8/31/2019	367.45	133.86
9/01/2019	347.77	135.94
AVERAGE	348.80	159.78