The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) have condemned the recent hike in Electricity tariff. According to the union, increasing the tariff does not guarantee steady power supply.
Speaking on this, Mr. Joe Ajaero, General Secretary of NUEE expressed his dissatisfaction that the Federal Government keeps investing money into the Electricity sector even after its privatisation.
He said:
“Government is charging Nigerians tariffs based on production from gas, which is the most expensive form of generating electricity because the leaders in the generating companies are pricing the gas produced here with international market prices. It is unfortunate that government privatised the sector at N400 billion, retained 40 per cent and has spent N1.7 trillion in the same sector. Looking at it, the Discos cannot have up to 20 per cent and government has brought another N1.7 trillion upon the N400 billion already invested. Since seven years, no percentage has been added to 40 per cent share while the same shares of the workers have been allocated to them.”
“It is sad that government didn’t review the financial losses caused by privatisation. If government doesn’t address the failure of Discos in the privatisation process, NUEE is ready to take over all the Discos in the country with our members who are engineers and run it more efficiently,”
He added: “Seven years after privatisation, the country has not exceeded 4,000 megawatts of power,”
He also stated that no power plant has been constructed in the last seven years since the Discos took over, adding that Nigerians should not expect improved power supply soon.
