John Ofikhenua, Abuja
The Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC) Tuesday raised the alarm over the effect of insecurity on its area of business franchise.
The situation, the firm said, has made cash flows negative.
The company is in the North Eastern Nigeria, the epicenter of the Boko Haram insurgents.
It would be recalled that the firm had once declared a force majeure that resulted in the Federal Government taking over it and its eventual sale to Quest Electricity Limited.
In its document, titled “Submission of performance improvement plans and applications for extraordinary tariff review of MYTO -2015 for Yola Electricity Distribution Company (YEDC)”, which the firm submitted to the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), YEDC said that its areas of business has been damaged.
The situation, according to the document, has made the implementation of a business plan impossible.
The document with ref no: MD/YEDC)/Vol.1/012 was obtained by The Nation Monday in Abuja.
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The document states: “The security situation in the Yola franchise area has, to date, made achievement of the Business Plan impossible. The insurgency has made it impossible to issue bills and collect payments in the affected Business Units.
“Areas of the network have been damaged, and will require capex to recover even to the level of assets at Handover. Completely disconnecting the affected units was not practical course of action. First, continuing power supplies to the affected regions were requested to allow the military bases to continue to function.
The Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) that covers between 2020-2024) added that the “YEDC has an obligation to supply to our customers and reducing the supply
of power will aggravate the challenges they have to face. Once it became clear that the losses were set to continue indefinitely, IEDM declared Political Force Majeure under the Performance Agreement and exercised the Put Option.
“They also suggested a number of potential actions to mitigate the impact and allow the management of YEDC to continue. The long term solution has not yet been resolved.
In the meantime, the management team in YEDC has remained to maintain as much stability as is possible under the difficult circumstances.”
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