TUC kick against planned electricity tariff hike

Joy Obakeye

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has kicked against plans to hike electricity tariffs, stressing that Nigerians rarely have power in their houses and factories are closing shop and fleeing to neighbouring countries.

But the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) at the weekend has said that no tariff increase has been approved.

However, according to the National President of TUC, Quadri Olaleye in a statement, asked the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) not to encourage such inefficiency by the distribution companies in the country.

He noted that, “Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) should not encourage inefficiency by approving higher tariff because the Discos do not collect the billed revenue for the current tariff. There is a very low collection efficiency in the system.”

“The argument that the increment in tariff will help to improve the power supply holds no water. For decades now we have been paying for services not rendered which to us is a broad day robbery. Increase in tariff means passing the low-efficiency loss to the customers. If collection efficiency is high enough, it will help reduce the gap in the cost of delivering electricity and reduce the need for the higher tariff.”

Olalaye stressed that “Why should the Federal Government release another the intervention of N600billion to operators? What did they do with the first two bailouts of N213billion and N701billion released to support power distribution, generation and gas companies?

“We have an issue with the government making all these serious interventions without significant progress. Is it not shameful that Nigeria with over two hundred million population cannot boast of 6,000MW consistently for one week at a time that South Africa with a little over 50million population is generating over 50,000MW?

Meanwhile, reacting to a publication in several electronic and print media that end-user electricity tariffs have been increased following the approval of the minor review (2016 – 2018) of the 2015 Multi-Year Tariff Order on August 21, 2019,

NERC in a a statement signed by the General Manager, Public Affairs, Usman Arabi, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent explained that the minor review implemented by the Commission was an adjustment of the tariff regime released in 2015 to account for changes in macroeconomic indices for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018.