By Adetayo Adegbemle
Historically, the Nigerian Government has been paying electricity subsidy to the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). This means that there is the Cost Reflective Tariff of supplying 1kWh (kilowatt hour), and the Allowed Tariff that consumers are “allowed” to pay.
This variance, otherwise called “subsidy” has now turned into an elephant in the chinaware shop.
The subsidy is a result of Government policy consideration on welfare, targeted at supporting the social welfare of consumers who might not be able to pay the high True Cost of the service. Economic Stability, aimed at ensuring a stable and affordable energy supply is essential for economic development, and political that further aimed at mitigating possible social unrest and creating political instability.

The Federal Government of Nigeria, in 2020, with the introduction of Service Based Tariff (SBT) decided to phase out subsidy on electricity tariff, because of the strain it is putting on Government finances, and the inefficiencies it promotes in the energy sector.

You will recall that the Minister of Finance, Budgets and National Planning under President Muhammadu Buhari, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed had said that the Federal Government had quietly removed all subsidies in the power sector with a plan to gradually end subsidies on petrol.
This was necessitated by the fact that payment of Subsidy, both on petrol and electricity, has become an albatross on Government finances. Between 2015 and 2020, the shortfall in allowed tariff reportedly stood at about N2.4 trillion, averaging N200 billion yearly, and in 2022 alone, over N600bn has been paid in subsidies, and it has been estimated to skyrocket to at least N1trillion alone in 2024.

The question now is: with the present state of Government finances, is the payment of subsidy on electricity tariff sustainable?
In 2022, NERC, the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission rolled out the Multi-Year Tariff Order that gradually phases out subsidies so that Nigerians can start paying Cost Reflective Tariff. For instance, in the MYTO 2022, the Cost Reflective Tariff, on average, should be N68.42 per kilowatt hour (kWh), while the Allowed Tariff the DisCos were to charge was N59.89/kWh.
With this, the Federal Government provided N8.53/kWh as a subsidy. Between January and March 2023 alone (Q1, 2023), the total subsidy of N52.7bn was paid to the 11 Discos.

The rationale behind the MYTO 2022, as approved by the regulators was premised on the fact that DisCos that are in highly urban centres are allowed to charge tariffs that are near cost reflective due to evidence of high purchasing power and high consumption level in those areas, indicating that they are high-income consumers, while Discos that are in areas with low-income consumers are allowed to charge lower Allowed Tariff, therefore paying higher subsidy.
This makes the subsidy regime impact more on a low-income bracket of consumers. It means people living in places under Abuja Disco, Ikeja Disco and Eko Disco were paying tariff that is nearly Cost Reflective, while people living in places under Benin Disco, Yola and Ibadan Disco are paying much less.

An example, as seen in the NERC Q1 Report, Eko Disco’s Cost Reflective Tariff was put at N62.04/kWh and the Allowed Tariff (AT) was N59.49/kWh, making the variance, or subsidy paid to Eko Disco just N2.55/kWh, totaling about N2.04bn. Similarly, for Abuja Disco, the Cost Reflective Tariff was N65,67/kWh, and the Allowed Tariff was N63.24/kWh, with variance just being N2.43/kWh, again a total of N2.15bn was paid in Subsidy to AEDC.

The reverse was the case in places like Yola, for instance, where the Cost Reflective Tariff was N147.55/kWh and the Allowed Tariff was N65.99/kWh, thus leaving the government to bear the burden of N81.56/kWh which amounted to N7.82bn.
In July 2023, the new Nigeria Federal Government placed a Freeze on the Tariff Review, which has greatly distorted the plan, and skyrocketed the shortfall in the Electricity tariff shortfall, reversing the progress made in the MYTO 2022 to phase out the Subsidy in Electricity Tariff.
Majorly because of the changes in the Macro Economic indices(like Foreign Exchange, Inflation, and the Unified Exchange Rate, the Cost of Electricity has also increased drastically, 80% of generation is gas-based and gas amounts to 30-40% of generation cost so the floating of the USD spiked cost of generation, the Naira-Dollar exchange rate rose from an average of N464.08/$ in Q1 to N798.40/$ in Q3 and the Nigerian inflation rate rose from 22% in Q1 to 24.10% in Q3, while the US inflation rate dropped from 5.58% to 3.20%.

The Weighted Average of Cost Reflective Tariff in Q3 of 2023 has therefore increased from N68.42 average to N111.12. This also means that the average subsidy has increased to about N51,23/kWh, totaling about N332.68bn in Q3 alone.
Another issue facing the Electricity market is the delay and bottlenecks associated with paying the electricity subsidy as well as the slow cycle of the electricity market. The subsidy is funded from various pools such as budget appropriation, FGN commitments domiciled at the Federal Ministry of Finance, World Bank guarantees and loans, as well as CBN facilities.
Who are the beneficiaries of this subsidy?
The rate design provided that the subsidy paid by the government should have more benefit to the masses who are mostly low-income earners across the DisCos. But now, present data shows that Areas identified as high-income areas are now benefitting more from the subsidy than other areas identified as low-income consumers.
For instance, the Government now has to pay N46.66/kWh in Subsidy to Abuja Disco, from the Q1 figures of N2.43/kWh, raising the subsidy figures to Abuja Disco to N43.26bn in Q3.
This is a jump of 1,912% from N2.15bn in Q1 to N43.26 bn in Q3, 2023. Similarly, Eko Disco which was N2.55/kWh in Q1 has seen a rise of 1, 676% in subsidy payment as of Q3, 2023.
Similar Data for Yola Disco shows only a 98% rise in Subsidy payments in Q3, 2023. for YolaDisco, Cost Reflective Tariff was N214.57/kWh but the Allowed Tariff remained at N65.99/kWh with government paying N148.58/kWh, amounting to N15.52bn in Q3 2023.

Data clearly shows that the high-income consumers, or the Rich, are benefitting more from the subsidy than the low-income consumers that the subsidy was designed for.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, established that rich/high-income households have a higher electricity consumption pattern than their poor neighbours.
A further report from NERC also shows that the Subsidy payment for the poorest 20% of the Non-Maximum Demand Consumers, mainly residents, stands at measly 0.43bn, while the Richest 20$ gulps N17.24bn in subsidy payment by the Government in the Q1 2023.
The Middle-income group also accounts for N3.36bn in Subsidy.

By Q3, 2023, the Richest 20% accounts for N117.8bn, while the Poorest 20% benefitted only N2.97bn. These figures show clearly that the Electricity Tariff Subsidy has been disproportionately benefitting the Rich Nigerian Consumers while excluding the Poor ones for the Subsidy itself was designed for and this is to the detriment of the poor whom the FGN is looking out for as they form a higher proportion of the Nigerian populace and electricity consumers.
And it is also detrimental to Government Finances. The federal government is urged to take a quick decision before the situation spirals out of control like the petrol subsidy.
N2trn subsidy paid since 2015, there has been negligible investment in the NESI by the private sector (except Azura), which is a clear signal that the commercial viability of the sector has left a lot to be desired.

Electricity Subsidy is not sustainable, and we need to start thinking of where else the Subsidy we are paying in electricity tariff can be better applied.

. Adetayo Adegbemle is the convener and Executive Director of PowerUp Nigeria, a Power Consumer Advocacy Group.