{"id":848,"date":"2024-05-21T08:03:13","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T08:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/?p=848"},"modified":"2024-05-21T08:06:55","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T08:06:55","slug":"tariff-hike-tension-mounts-as-electricity-workers-lock-out-minister-issue-14-day-ultimatum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/2024\/05\/21\/tariff-hike-tension-mounts-as-electricity-workers-lock-out-minister-issue-14-day-ultimatum\/","title":{"rendered":"Tariff hike: Tension Mounts As Electricity Workers Lock Out Minister, Issue 14-day Ultimatum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The National Union of Electricity Employees, and the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, on Monday, stopped business activities at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Power in Abuja.<\/p>\n

Members of NUEE and SSAEAC also locked out the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, and other workers of the ministry, stopping accessing the Power House building in the Maitama District of Abuja.<\/p>\n

This was as the\u00a0 Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, on Monday, gave the Federal Government a deadline of May 31, 2024 to reverse the hike in electricity tariff.<\/p>\n

The unions took the decision at the end of a jointly held National Executive Council meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NEC once again vehemently condemns the unilateral increase in electricity tariff by the authorities. This action, taken without due consideration for the economic hardships faced by the masses and the provisions of the law, is deemed unjust and burdensome. The NEC reaffirms its demands for an immediate reversal of the tariff hike and the vexatious apartheid categorisation into bands to alleviate the suffering of Nigerian workers and citizens and gives the National Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Federal Government until the last day of May, 2024 to meet these demands,\u201d the unions said in a\u00a0 statement issued at the end of their meeting.<\/p>\n

The acting General Secretary of NUEE, Igwebike Dominic, told our correspondent that the shutdown of the power ministry would continue until the government listens to the demands of the union or calls for a meeting to address the issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shutdown of Power House is going to continue until they hold a meeting with the unions or meet the demands written in our letter to the minister,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

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In the letter to Adelabu, jointly signed by both unions and dated May 20, 2024, the associations stated that the government took a unilateral and detrimental decision to liquidate TCN without consulting stakeholders.<\/p>\n

They said, \u201cWe are taken aback by the utmost disregard for the critical stakeholders in the power sector by you and your agency\u2019s unilateral and detrimental decisions in the sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that all agencies, under your ministry, should key into your agenda and set goals by extension to the vision of this administration in seeing to a regular and sustainable power supply in the country. So, the disruption being engineered by NERC in the sector is not surprising, as there is no known agenda or vision for the power sector by your administration one year after the resumption of office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unfortunate scenario playing out in the power sector points to the fact that you administer the sector like a personal estate with no consideration for the welfare and survival of the workers and the sector in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

They accused the minister that since he assumed office a year ago, \u201cyour ministry and NERC have been running the sector without recourse to critical stakeholders in the power industry\u201d.<\/p>\n

The unions stated that the unilateral tariff increase to about 300 per cent was done without stakeholders\u2019 dialogue, adding that the proposed review of workers\u2019 salaries does not receive the desired considerations.<\/p>\n

According to the unions, this is provocative and unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mischievous deduction of eight per cent of the revenue generated as technical losses from TCN is a political calculation to blackmail the company and its management to make it look inefficient is disheartening and would, in the long term, hurt the entire electricity value chain. This is highly unacceptable and cannot be sustained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vexatious order from NERC on a monthly deduction of N2bn from the account of TCN is unrealistic and an attempt to run TCN down, portray the management as incompetent and take advantage of the failures for selfish political gains. We want a justified reason for such a humongous and unrealistic deduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe illegal deduction of 46.7 per cent from TCN revenue (not even profit) for project execution for Discos; are the privatised companies not owned by private entities? What system of privatisation are we adopting? Our findings revealed that all these obnoxious orders from NERC are a conspiracy to grind the operations of TCN and then liquidate it. These are to prepare enough ground to unbundle it for selfish political gains by a few people,\u201d they expounded.<\/p>\n

The unions vowed to vehemently resist any attempt to cede those infrastructures to cronies for political patronage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNERC must reverse the unilateral tariff increase implemented without consulting with critical stakeholders in the sector. The salaries of the workers in the sector must be reviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll obnoxious deductions from TCN must stop forthwith and all deducted funds remitted back to TCN with immediate effect. Why these deductions, when revenue is required to strengthen the already aged and weak network that will guarantee stable and reliable energy supply?<\/p>\n

\u201cHenceforth, all staff in the sector will have electricity rebates (units) allocated to them as a standard practice. Gencos must not be given revenue generated from TCN and Discos until they allow the unionisation of their companies as provided by the Labour Act,\u201d they noted.<\/p>\n

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The National Union of Electricity Employees, and the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, on Monday, stopped business activities at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Power in Abuja. Members of...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beadysword.com.ng\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}