Joseph Bakare
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) has said that its record shows that Electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos) experienced some billing shortfalls in July in spite of improved performance.
According to the Regulator, only ₦243.14bn was billed to customers, which reflects a billing efficiency of 81.04 per cent, leaving a shortfall of about ₦56.9bn in unbilled energy.
The DisCos recorded a ₦57bn revenue shortfall during the period in review, despite improved performances by Ikeja and Eko DisCos in billing and revenue collection.
According to the latest fact sheet released by the NERC, DisCos received electricity worth ₦300.04bn during the period.
Despite the industry-wide gap, Ikeja and Eko DisCos stood out as the best performers.
Ikeja achieved a billing efficiency of 90.52 per cent and topped the chart with a 98.10 per cent revenue recovery efficiency, while Eko recorded the highest billing efficiency of 97.20 per cent and a recovery efficiency of 95.58 per cent.
On the revenue collection side, DisCos collectively managed to collect ₦193.96bn, translating to 79.77 per cent collection efficiency.
This is a slight improvement of 3.20 percentage points compared to June 2025.
However, some utilities dragged down overall market performance.
Kaduna DisCo posted the weakest revenue recovery efficiency at just 41.65 per cent, while Benin and Kaduna also recorded the lowest billing efficiencies of 55.76 per cent and 55.66 per cent respectively.
The sector’s overall recovery efficiency stood at 76.82 per cent, with actual average collections at ₦89.30/kWh, well below the allowed average tariff of ₦116.25/kWh