The Nigerian Labour Congress has criticized the Association of Power Generation Companies (APGC) that is requesting for N6 trillion bail out, describing the demand as a heist.
In a statement titled The Clandestine N6 Trillion Demand Is a Heist, the NLC said the “atrocious demands on Government is unfounded,” adding that “the GENCOs should have known that the merger of the old Niger Dam Authority and the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) was to ensure that the market pays for the cost of Generation.
“You cannot therefore ask the government to pay in a privatized era instead of recovering whatsoever costs from the market. Not even after the increase of tariff by over 500% since you took over.”
The statement signed by the NLC National President, Joe Ajaero and issued on Thursday said the request “amounts to wage theft and robbery to deny workers and their unions check-off dues amounting to millions since taking over and then refusing to pay dividend on the ten per cent allotted to workers by the Privatisation Act.
“We ask, how much has the GENCOs paid to the Federal Government that is supposed to own about 40% equity in their companies as dividend since the last 10yrs of operation? We believe not a single kobo. One is therefore aghast at what moral grounds the GENCOs would be standing to make such an atrocious demand of N6 trillion if not because it believes that it is above the state.”
The statement criticized the GENCOS for accusing the NLC of incompetence to understand the power sector and attempted to justify what is clearly a brazen move to loot the public treasury.
While responding to the incompetence accusation, the NLC said its members work in the plants, adding that ”our affiliate, the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), is on the ground every day. The leadership of the NLC played active and leading roles in the struggle against this flawed privatisation exercise two decades ago.
“The President of NLC sits on the Board of the International Energy Agency and a Ph.D Scholar in Energy Law. We warned that this; failure; would be the outcome. Our warnings were ignored by those who were compensated. Consequently, do not lecture us on dynamics when you have failed to meet a single objective of the privatisation exercise.”
The statement recalled that the entire power sector assets were sold for about N400 billion, and asked the APGC and Co need to explain to Nigerians why they bought the entire Power assets for around N400 billion, “but GENCOs alone are demanding N6 trillion as APGC admitted not even the N3 trillion Federal Government wanted to pay!”
“It is important that we ask the GENCOs to make public how much Nigerians were paying as electricity tariff before they captured assets of the Power sector and how much Nigerians are paying now?
“They should tell Nigerians whether tariff has not gone up by over 500% since with stagnant generation and sometimes zero generation. Is it not immoral to continue extorting this huge hike in tariffs from Nigerians yet, APGC has the nerves to request for N6trn? This is utterly brazen!
