Working Paper 020 Breaking the cycle of corruption in Nigeria’s electricity sector: a political settlements analysis Pallavi Roy1, Kelechi. C. Iwuamadi2 and Jibrin Ibrahim3 March 2020 1Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London (
[email protected]) 2Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja, Nigeria (
[email protected]) 3Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja, Nigeria (
[email protected]) Breaking the cycle of corruption in Nigeria’s electricity sector: a political settlements analysis Contents Acronyms and abbreviations 3 Acknowledgments 3 Executive summary 4 1. Introduction 5 2. Interdependencies and the analysis of corruption: the ACE approach 9 3. The privatisation process, rent capture and the power sector 13 3.1. Technical shortcomings 16 3.2. Overlapping corruption in the sector post-privatisation 18 4. Escalating economic and social costs 23 4.1. The impact on (M)SMEs in particular 26 5. Evidence to support the proposed ACE strategy 29 5.1. Mind the local political economy 36 6. Conclusion 38 7. Annex 39 8. References 40 Figures Figure 1: Main sources of lighting in households not connected to the grid 7 Figure 2: Average generation in Nigeria post-privatisation 16 Figure 3: Payments by DisCos to the sector 21 Figure 4: Sectoral map of distortions 22 Figure 5: Shortfall between what DisCos pay and what they owe in Q2 2019 23 Figure 6: Percentage of metered customers 25 Figure 7: Total weekly sales and total outlay on electricity 33 Figure 8: Monthly expenditure on diesel versus EEDC