Electricity Tariff Hike: Workers Stranded As Labour Shuts Down DISCOs’ Offices

Electricity Tariff Hike: Workers Stranded As Labour Shuts Down DISCOs’ Offices

with and everything the timing was terrible even lawmakers know it in a display of solidarity and determination members of the Nigerian libber Congress NLC and the Trade union Congress of Nigeria Tu have staged the protest over hike in electricity tariff in Nigeria the NLC and the TU shut down offices of the Nigerian electricity Regulatory Commission nerc and distribution companies disco Nationwide to press home their demands for the reversal of electricity tariff hike the demonstrations brought activities in the offices to a stand still as workers were stranded this is yet another um increase that is electricity but for that sector to move for analyst say like this move is a step in the right direction that we cannot continue the way it used to be that government is subsidizing this thing heavily again again it’s a is the timing is wrong there are many people in government who would have expected this to happen maybe after 2 years 2 years yes when you have cost you have invest in that sector hold on hold onree hold on okay isow when you have costed real Improvement to happen in the sector there’s no improvement that we are talking about here in many states of our country 90% of the people electricity consumers in many states don’t have access to prepaid meters they are made to Grapple with estimated billing which amounts to a huge fraud big one that’s that at this time our capacity to generate is affected largely by gas constraints the kind of gas constraints that we didn’t even have some years before now so when you have a situation in which more than 97% of your electricity generating um um infrastructure are gas fired and you have gas constraints that is why you see from time to time um system failures happening because you must be able to have gas supply at Optimum level produce gas yes but there are many things you know we can talk about why we have gas constraint it’s a different sometimes the boys in the data will break the pipelines because what we are because they are looking for crude and once you break the pipeline the gas pipeline you merely wasted your time because you cannot pipe the gas that you’ve broken and you have disrupted supply to the power plants the power plants are by Nature located far away from the source of gas you can imagine the source of gas is neither da but we have power even in in the nor North Central Nigeria and the rest of them one and two you know they are far away from the data and people break pipelines how does gas gets to them sometimes they cause disruptions from fados gas does not get to power stations so already we have and many gas companies prefer now to even sell to foreign clients we are find we are looking for a way to discourage them from Simply producing for forign cl we’ve been owing the gas we have problems with that we are we are owing they are owing the gas companies you know as I said before the discour are the people that we all abuse M we are ask the that relay from generation to to transmission to distribution they all have problems but because the discour are the face of the industry they are the one that we go with last retailer yes we go and fight them people say all kinds of things they are the worst they are the weakest link they are this I hear they the weakest Le I know that people say that are ignorant transmission is I just I just you see I’ve talked about it many times this this I just want to keep looking at people if we had succeeded in improving that sector improve generating capacity improve distribution capacity depend on one national g the the distribu companies need tremendous investment in that sector look at even some of them that are been acquired now by amcon the transmission leg we have issues so if my own argument is that if we had been able to improve electricity access for our people to the point that they are impressed honestly when you bring the matter of increase in tari it don’t get the kind of push back that it is getting now because even some of the highend users that you are targeting that you said this is going to affect them you are talking about people who get 20 hour people who get 20 hours of electricity but where are they where are those people who get 20 hours some of the people that you listed in that band a they are B they are barely getting 4 hours in a day yet you want them to pay so much you want them to pay something higher than even the United States average just a million of or 2 million of them I think a million of them so yes but they to are pushing back the Ordinary People Too are pushing back because they are not getting value for money that is see there are fundamental issues um and I think I’ll address it in two ways the human angle is there that we need to look at we also need to look at the business angle of course the government you know ought to balance the social aspect of its own job and the service providing aspect that I agree but if you look at the history of electricity uh uh consumption in Nigeria right from uh the time of the Europia of course they were the first to start enjoying power in Nigeria lighting we were lighting them for free it was the European neighborhood that we were lighting now A Time came when everybody was enjoying this part and as soon as it was increased when Tariff was increased the first tariff increased what happened then was agitation as soon as the people agitated now there was default in payment and the power company went to court they won the case you know what the government did they bought over the entire debt and that is the beginning so government started subsidizing subsequently gradually and that brought the par sector to its news so much that in 2013 when it was eventually privatized of course labor also kicked that time it took it was 2014 that they were able to take over now 5 six years down the line I think he was the second time of uh uh of the last government when a research was done it was it was clearly shown that uh after the privatization about 6 years after number one they had U generation uh uh uh I think they have lost about 85% of Revenue number two only 23% of the cost of production were being realized number three operational efficiency has reduced as long as the government will have its hands feeding them for free you will have this let’s even see who are the people enjoying this subsidy I like us to do this mathematics on the table you and I will stay in the city maybe in your house you have like 5 AC or 4 AC minimum now if you ought to pay 1,000 take for example per AC the government subsidized for you and you pay me be 300 na so at the end of the day the government is paying 700 Time Time 5 for you 3,500 I’m not counting the BBS now so maybe the government up pay like we support subsidy in that sector I’m coming let me finish so the government ends up paying for you maybe in a week or in a day 5,000 so you can leave your AC on all through the day whether you are home or not you leave your fridges on but the woman in the village the family in the village guess what maybe they have just one B one tiny bb or two or three to put on so at the end of the day what the government is paying for her subsidy for that family subsidy he not even up to 100 n in a month so who is enjoying that subsidy it is the rich those who live in the urban areas people I agree that this everyone who lives in urban are I’m coming place no no of course I’m coming now but if you look at the ratio when the government spend we were to spend like maybe 1.3 trillion or so you know to pay again for for subsidy if you look at that amount the rich will take maybe 70 80% of that but unfortunately there is no way you will take it off that it will not affect both the poor and the rich and for me we should be holistic see there are some areas where you take holistic decisions I don’t have I’m not see governance at some point is not uh is not tea and bread when when you get to some critical Junction in governance you take critical decisions that will be for the benefit of all Nigeria must stop subsidizing consumption I keep maintaining that and I won’t stop maintaining that if subsidizing electricity for this band a people is what is what they are fighting for I would not support it and they have said okay we are not increasing for the band DCB it is only for band a I don’t think that is wrong good economic sense if that will make where would they have the money to invest in order to produce and give us this access we are talking about so if there’s no money to invest there there’s no way service can improve I’m a private sector person if something is not working I look at the problems I do analysis I identify the issues if I need to invest and I don’t have the money and I know that if I borrow what you are pay me cannot pay back the money what should I do for example if they got to borrow today they cannot realize in terms of income the amount they have gone to borrow they can’t pay so would they want to invest in the area the answer is no so for me here is the truth subsidy for for the rich should be stopped as soon as we can so if they have stopped it by increasing I fall into I don’t want to say b a good and not having that power supply but I can only pay for what you supply me that’s the truth so the fact is that if you increase if you increase tar for band members so are enjoying these things I don’t think it is wrong do you agree because we said said that in the next 10 years we need a minimum of $15 billion every other year constant investment to turn around that sector you think with this um [Music] um increas in tariff we’ll be able to find that money we may not be able to do it wholly but least close the gap see see billion you are not you see let me tell if if we are we are in a very bad state in terms of electricity we in a very bad place let’s tell ourselves the truth there not something F this thing came at a time when electricity generation and distribution and even transmission was like at an alltime low I don’t think that we have been able to even generate 4,000 megaw on a consistent basis I challenge anybody to prove that I’m lying just 4,000 I’m not saying 5,000 there was a time that we moved we were able to will about 5,700 something megawatt significantly see but now we are not even we are not close to that and that’s when you are brought the T people no matter all the English that we speak if people

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