Electricity workers to FG: Stop deceiving Nigerians, tariff hike ‘ll worsen socio-economic woes
Workers in the nation’s power sector have asked the Federal Government to stop deceiving Nigerians over the 300 percent hike in electricity tariff, and called for it reversal to avoid further socioeconomic woes.
While advising the government to come clean on the hike and not be economical with the truth, they described the hike as nothing but another anti-people policy.
Under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, the workers warned that if any of their colleague is attacked in the line of duty over the tariff hike, they would shut down power supply nationwide without notice. In a statement titled “Hike in electricity tariff I – Danger looms”, Acting General Secretary of the Union, Dominic Igwebike, among others, “NUEE is one of the critical stakeholders in the electricity sector and it has been our major concern to see the delivery of constant, sustainable, clean, and affordable Electric Power to our dear Nation.
“There has not been any meaningful improvement since after the privatization of the Power Sector. The country has an installed capacity of about 14,000MW but generates about 4,803MW. But , Nigeria needs at least 30,000MW to reach sufficiency.
“The recent hike in electricity tariff from N68 /kwh to N225 /kwh is absurd in a country where the majority of the masses are grappling with basic survival and an electricity access rate of about 55 percent.
“The justification given by Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, is that the hike is attributed to only Band A consumers who make up only 15 percent of electricity consumers and utilize 40 percent of the nation’s electricity consumption. “It begs to understand the sensibility of the person(s) that uttered such a statement purporting that it would not affect the general public.
“They need to answer these questions: Who are the Band A consumers? What do they do? Who are the customers of the Band A consumers? Who bears the brunt of the electricity hike?
“The general public is the one that will be most affected by this. They are the customers and end-users of the Band A products and services. The additional costs will be transferred to the common man, so they are indirectly being exploited, notwithstanding their dwindling purchasing power and increasing impoverishment.
“Let’s look at these two scenarios: 1. Company A, uses 1000 kwh of energy in manufacturing and works for 24 hours a day, with the current hike, his daily energy cost will increase from N50,592,000 to N167,400,000 which is an additional direct cost of N116,808,000 i.e 231 percent not to maintain the increase in the cost of their inputs as the costs of those will also be increased by the producers to accommodate their own increase.
“The price of Company A in Band A products will go up by about 300 percent and those in Band Z where there is no transformer will buy at the increased price. If they buy at a higher price, they are the ones paying the almost 300 percent increase, not the manufacturer purported to be taxed. Vanguard
