Note: From March 31, DisCos won’t accept cash payment for electricity bills

The federal government has ordered electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to adopt electronic platforms for the payment of energy bills across the country.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) said the move is to reduce the aggregate technical, commercial and collection losses the DisCos are battling with.

The commission asked the DisCos to leverage on available banking channels approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to ensure prudence in the utilisation of market funds.

While the power firms have till January 31 to migrate industrial and commercial customers to their cashless electronic platforms, they have till March 31 to move residential customers to pay their bills only on the platforms.

“The Federal Government issued a policy directive that requires the mandatory transition of certain classes of end-use customers of DisCos from direct cash settlement of bills to cashless settlement platforms in order to reduce collection leakages/losses and improve overall revenue assurance in NESI,” NERC said.

– The Cable