Kushal Dutta, managing director of Jovago Nigeria has identified costly electricity charges as a deterrent to investment and business development in Nigeria.
This is coming as the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, reveals that less than 40 percent of electricity bills are paid by consumers and as a result higher tariffs are expected to be levied in a bid to plug the loss in power revenue.
Dutta said: “One of the highest cost e-commerce companies in Nigeria cover is electricity. Because online-based business need constant power supply to function and deliver services to clients, we spend a bulk of our revenue which should go into increasing operations on buying diesel for generators that run almost 24 hours each day.
“Although we predict better market opportunities for the sector, there is need to curb this inflation in tariff pricing so investing companies can begin to thrive and achieve real growth.”
While consumers of power bemoan the instability and high cost of sourcing electricity, Sunday Oduntan, executive director of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, ANED, said that the high charges were dismissible in view of the low payment habits of Nigerians.