By Cross Udo, Abuja
The Federal Government yesterday pleaded with the organized labour not to truncate the transformation plan on the power sector as it concerns the new tariff regime
The government also stated that more than 95 per cent of members of the Organised Labour that protested on Monday and picketed the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the Transmission Company (TCN) headquarters over the hike in electricity tariffs are not affected by the new increase.
Recall that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress, TUC, of Nigeria, had on Monday embarked on a nationwide protest over the recent hike in electricity tariffs which specifically affected Band A customers in Nigeria’s electricity supply industry and what they described as ‘colossal failure” of the Privatization in the power sector.
The protesters demanded a reversal of the increase.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the two days Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja, the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelaji, appealed to the organized labour not to derail the transformation plan in the power sector.
Fielding questions on the labour’s demand, he said, “My appeal again is that they should please not derail or distract our transformation plan for the industry.
“We have a documented reform roadmap to take us to our desired destination, where we’re going to have reliable, functional, cost-effective, and affordable electricity in Nigeria. It cannot be achieved overnight because this is a decay of almost 60 years, which we are trying to correct.
“Nobody promised us or assured us that the road will be smooth. We knew it was going to be rough, but we must weather the storm, which is going to be temporary. It’s a lot of sacrifice from everybody; from the government’s side, from the people’s side, from the private sector side. So we must bear this sacrifice for us to have a permanent gain.
“I don’t want us to go back to the situation we were in February and March, where we had very low generation. We all felt the impact of this whereby the electricity supply was very low and every household, every company, and every institution, felt it.
“From the little reform that we’ve embarked upon since the beginning of April, we have seen the impact that electricity has improved and it can only get better. So, I’m appealing to everybody that one should not toy with this before that we have embarked upon, we are aiming somewhere and we will achieve it.”
The Minister, who acknowledged that the protesters have the fundamental right to embark on protest, commended them for being peaceful and orderly.
He said, “Let me first make it abundantly clear that we are in a democracy so there are fundamental human rights. I cannot deny people their rights.
“It’s the right of the Labour to protest peacefully and to come up with their demands, from the perspective they saw what we did. It is allowed, it is legitimate and it is understandable.
“So we cannot stop them from organizing a peaceful protest or laying down their demands. Let me make that clear. President Bola Tinubu’s administration is also a listening government.
“We have heard their demands, we’re going to look at it, we’ll make further engagements and I believe we’re going to reach a peaceful resolution with the labour because no government can succeed without the cooperation, collaboration, and partnership with the Labour unions.
“So we welcome the peaceful protest and I’m happy that it was not a violent protest. They’ve made their positions known and the government has taken in their demands and we’re looking at it.
“But one thing that I want to state here is from the statistics of those affected by the hike in tariff, the people on the road yesterday, who embarked on the peaceful protests, more than 95% of them are not affected by the increase in the tariff of electricity.
“They still enjoy almost 70 per cent government subsidy in the tariff they pay because the average cost of generating, transmitting, and distributing electricity is not less than N180 today.
“A lot of them are paying below N60 so they still enjoy the government’s subsidy. So, when they say we should reverse the recently increased tariff, sincerely it’s not affecting them. That’s one position.”
