The Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, has called on the Federal Government to reverse the plan to hike electricity tariff with effect from next month.
The Federal Government of Nigeria had announced plans to hike electricity tariff by forty per cent from the first of July 2023.
A statement signed by the President of the NLC Joe Ajaero, described the move as insensitive considering what he called the present hardship being faced by citizens with the removal of fuel subsidy.
“The massive increase is explained away as a response to the over 100 per cent increase in the pump price of premium motor spirit (pms).
“Details reveal a movement in inflation from 16.9% to 22.41 (threatening to needle 30), and a shift in the exchange rate from N441 to N750″, he said.
Ajaero said that the figures are not a justification for the proposed tariff increase.
“The issue of capacity to pay and quality of service delivery is not only germane but superior to any rationalisation by market logic.
“The service providers despite sundry support have not been able to meet the threshold of 5000 megawatts.
“Coupled with this, there have been surreptitious increases without notice in violation of statutes”, the NLC President said.
According to Ajaero, “the inherent risk in the new regime of tariff is that there is no control, implying that by August, consumers will pay new rates.
“The other risk is that by the time other products or service-rendering entities come up with their new prices or rates, the ordinary person would have been compacted into dust”.
He said the rate at which the promoters of electricity hikes in the country are going “is highly combative and combustible.
“With the contemplation of payment of school fees in tertiary institutions and increases in privately-owned ones in addition to other costs/tariffs on the way, life in Nigeria could truly be Hobbesian.
“The market economies which the Market Fundamentalists seek to emulate, have in place socio-economic safeguards which we do not have.
In light of this, our advice is that this proposed tariff hike should be shelved for our collective safety”, he said.
Emmanuel Ukoh
