Usman Mohammed, the managing director of Transmission Company of Nigeria, has asked the country’s international electricity customers to pay $9 million outstanding power bills.
He disclosed that international electricity customers have accumulated a bill of over $100 million since he assumed office as he warned that they will get disconnected if they don’t pay up.
Mohammed said “It is not because I am the chairman of the West African Power Pool (WAAP) that I will be allowing international customers to cheat Nigeria. When I took over as MD TCN, both Benin and Togo were owing Nigeria more than $100 million. The debt now remains $7 million. Niger is owing less than $2 million. In short, we are not leaving them. We disconnect them as we disconnect customers here in Nigeria. Electricity is not charity. We cannot just allow people to consume electricity and leave us like that. As at now, we have restricted their supply to only their contracted ones. We are insisting they pay all their outstanding bills before we reconnect them and we increase the off-take.”