POWER distribution companies, DISCOs, are now adopting moral suasion to recover N1 trillion debts owed them by ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs. Sunday Oduntan, executive director, research and advocacy, Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, said it would be wrong for energy distribution firms to use the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to arrest officials of the federal government’s MDAs.

“Using force to arrest debtors in the sector is not a feasible option now. How can one use a federal government’s agency, such as EFCC to arrest the officials of agencies that are directly under the government because they owe electricity bills? This is not possible. That is why the Discos through its umbrella body ANED, is appealing to MDAs to pay the debts they owe power firms in unpaid tariffs.”

ANED is working with the legislative arm of the government to see what it can do on the issue of recovering its debts. According to him, Nigeria is in a democratic era, and this means that individuals or institutions must follow the democratic norms or principles to get redress for any injustice meted to them.

Oduntan said any attempt by organisations to operate outside the established democratic tenets would not be treated kindly by the government, adding that on that basis, the firms are following democratic process to recover their debts.

He, however, failed to comment on the statement credited to Babatunde Fashola, minister of power, works and housing, that the debts, which the MDAs owe power firms are smaller than what they (power firms) claim. He said the firms are unable to operate well because government owes them.

According to him, it is difficult for the power firms to meet their obligation to customers, adding that problems such as shortage of meters, transformers and other equipment exist in the sector because the power companies do not have enough money to provide them.

—  Apr 3, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT

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