The Federal Government through the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has appealed to members of the National Union of Electricity Employees not to down tools over the recent electricity tariff hike.
The Minister has urged the union not to withdraw its members from work as this would ground services.
This was disclosed during an interview, with Adelabu’s media aide, Bolaji Tunji, who said the government was doing everything to improve supply in Nigeria and everybody will be happy at the end of the day.
He said, “We just want to appeal to the labour union to understand what led to this. This is not about strike. it is about understanding; so that we can all work together. It is not anybody’s joy that there are blackouts all the time. These steps are being taken to solve the problems in the power sector. I beg the labour union to understand that this will galvanise the economy and create jobs.
“I want to appeal to the union to bear with us. It is for the good of the nation”.
The union insisted that they would withdraw their services should the government fail to rescind its decision on the removal of subsidy on the tariff payable by Band A customers.
The National President of the union, Adebiyi Adeyeye, told the media in an interview on Sunday that the union stood by its warning to the Federal Government.
Recall that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission had on April 3 raised the electricity tariff for customers enjoying 20 hours of power supply daily.
Customers in this category were said to be under the Band A classification and the increase raised their tariff to N225 per kilowatt-hour, from N66KWh.
In its earlier reaction, the union had warned the government to reverse the tariff hike saying, “If the government fails to address the crippling cost of electricity, NUEE will not hesitate to take strong action, including the swift withdrawal of our members expected to be used by DisCos to impose the tariff hike on the good people, to protect the livelihood of our members.”
In his remarks, Adeyeye said the supply of 20 hours of electricity is not feasible with the current infrastructure.
He said, “We just want the citizen to know that this thing is not possible, it is not feasible, you cannot give what you don’t have. When we don’t have the energy to give to the people and you ask our people to go out and collect such money, you know it is dangerous. Most times we don’t disclose what to do to the public because our sector is very critical to the nation”.
