The President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, during an interview on Arise TV, expressed his opinion that the Federal Government (FG) should not be involved in subsidizing electricity, as the industry has already been privatized.
He made these remarks while discussing the proposed 40% increase in electricity tariff, set to be implemented by the Federal Government on July 1, 2023.
“So, what is the government doing in another person’s business with N50 billion monthly subsidy? This is because the mantra they have been propagating is that government has no business in business.
“So, why subsidizing Mr. A and Mr. John’s business? It is laughable and it is so scandalous if after privatization of electricity and handing it over to the private sector and the federal government still say they are subsidizing it.”
Ajaero said that wasn’t the impression we were giving, we were given the impression that government had no money, that the private sector had a lot of money to handle electricity, electricity, distribution, generation and transmission and they sold it to individuals.
“So why are they spending 50 billion naira a month to subsidize electricity? I don’t understand the calculation,” the NLC president said.
When questioned about the position of the NLC regarding the ongoing issue of Nigerians paying for inadequate electricity supply despite previous calls by the legislature to review the privatization of the power sector, Ajaero responded.
“Well, the assumption they gave to Nigeria before privatisation was that there would be an improvement because I was at the head of it as the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employee (NUEE).
“For over 10 years, we tried to explain to them that for an under-developing country, you know, you don’t come up with privatization,” he told Arise TV.
“For a country where there is no availability, a country where there is no accessibility, the country where you cannot situate affordability, that Nigeria was not right for privatization but some of them decided to go ahead with it.
“And then they had about three assumptions, the issue of technical competence, managerial ability and foreign direct investment (FDI) which they said were the basis for them to privatize.
“If you look at all these, there was no nothing that they brought in, there was no technical competence.
“There was nobody that was running the institution privately that they handed over to, so no managerial ability.
“On the issue of FDI which they deceived Nigerians that it was to bring in foreign direct investment, there was no single dollar that came into the economy of Nigeria.
“They rather borrowed money from Nigerian banks which created liquidity and today as we talk, about six or seven companies, discos have been seized by the by banks, where they borrowed money.
“So when they borrowed money from Nigerian banks, to buy Nigerian electricity companies and the thing has created a lot of problems, whether Abuja electricity or Benin electricity.”
Ajaero commented that the electricity companies have been taken over by banks, which he believes lack the necessary competence to effectively manage the industry in Nigeria.
He further expressed his belief that if the Federal Government is contemplating solutions for fixing the power sector, they might need to go back to the beginning and reassess the situation.
