January 26, (THEWILL) – The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has asked the Federal Government to reverse its policy on fuel subsidy and planned privatisation of the transmission sector of the power sector, saying Nigeria’s electricity sector is comatose.
Speaking at the 21st Daily Trust Dialogue & Presentation of African of the Year Award in Abuja, NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, said the reversal of the programme was necessary because the Nigerian worker, who pays 1000 to and from work, spends 4,000 for the same journey to his or her office.
“I earn N30,000 a month and I will now go and pay N500 to be able to withdraw my money from POS. The situation is getting worse and will continue to worsen until we do a policy reversal,” he said, adding that the power sector, which should drive the economy by providing power for the various businesses to thrive, is comatose and unhealthy for the economy.
Ajaero said the Tinubu administration should look at the best option that would serve the Nigerian people. This he can do by drawing lessons from the past attempts at the electricity sector.
“He is trying to do what has been done before. He says TCN and others will be privatised. He knows that the privatisation exercise has failed and you want us to go through that policy.
“My own understanding of the Tinubu government is that we can change. As many people say, they are still new, 7 months, Eight months, we would have to look at the policies. What has been done before? Is it paying up? If it is not paying up, what do we do?
“The privatisation policy introduced by Jonathan is still there. Buhari came and did not do anything about it. He did not reverse it. He did not improve on it. It seems Tinubu wants to improve on it. If he improves on it, it is going to affect us.
“The power sector is gone for over 200 million Nigerians to have 4,000MW when the world recommended position is that 1 million people for 1,000MW. How are you going to manage, no matter the situation, the mandate you have given to the person in charge of power?
“You gave it to the private sector whose motive is money making and that profit, whether you like it or not, they could have a comatose sector. I am not ashamed to say it here.
“They said they bought the power sector, they went and borrowed money from the bank. All the DISCOs in the country have been taken over by banks because they could not pay, from Abuja, Kano, Kaduna Electricity, Ibadan, Benin City, all of them
“The same Nigerians that went today to borrow money from the banks to buy the power sector cannot pay back loans from the banks. The Banks are running the power sector and you expected it to perform. It will not.
“All they told us they needed was Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), technical competence managerial abilities, and all of these, whereas proxies were the owners of the power sector.
“As we talk today, nobody can tell us who owns the power sector. The issue is what is the Tinubu government going to do about all this?
“The private sector, in the past, could not even participate in the power sector. What return on investment will they do? Check all the provinces of the world, it takes the state to build the power sector
“Check from state to state, that is what they are doing now, building power stations and selling them at giveaway prices.
“For how many years now, since 2005, over 30 companies have been licensed to generate electricity and none of them has built any power plant, none of them has erected a plant.
“I think the Tinubu government should look at this holistically so that we have a conscious mind at once and deal with the matter.
“Agreed, Nigeria was down as at the time this administration came in but I think the first two or three policies have inflicted more injury on Nigerians and those injuries are telling, coupled with the cash crunch, the Buhari government did it. The Central Bank again started doing it.”
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, who was at the event, said the Labour movement should give the Bola Tinubu administration some more time as it is focused on building a better Nigeria.
According to him, even a pregnant woman would need nine months to deliver, so the APC government led by Tinubu was aware of the pains being experienced by Nigerians but the economy would become better as the programme continued.
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