NUEE seeks power sector reform despite FG’s N3tr intervention

Organised Labour in the electricity sector has lamented that despite the over N3 trillion injected by the federal government into the privatised electricity companies, there has been no commensurate increase in power generation over the past 10 years.

Secretary General of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Joe Ajaero, stated this during the public hearing on a bill to amend Electric Power Sector Reform Act, 2005 held on Thursday. 

The bill is to provide the legal and institutional framework for the implementation and coordination of rural electrification projects, establishment of the National Power Training Institute and Regulatory provisions to strengthen the sector for efficient services delivery and for related matters. 

“There has not been meaningful improvement or contribution by the current investors 9 years after privatization and 17 years after the Electric Power Sector Reform Act, 2005 was signed into law,” Ajaero said. 

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He said the privatisation of the power sector had further compounded the economic woes adding that the privatisation policy was designed to fail from the onset. 

He stressed the need for a review of the entire privatization exercise to reposition the power sector for efficiency and better service delivery to transform the country’s economy.  

“This Act, are we really obeying it? If there is provision for review after five years, and Nigerians are groaning, consistently Nigerians are complaining and we say privatization was based on the fact that government doesn’t have any business in it and government is pumping in money to an individual’s business,” he said. 

On his part, the Minister of State for Power, Mr Goddy Jedy-Agba, who spoke during a media chat with journalists, denied knowledge of the indiscriminate electricity tariff imposed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on consumers as presented by the NUEE Secretary General. 

In his earlier remarks, the chairman of the house committee on Power, Magaji Da’u Aliyu (APC, Jigawa), said the public hearing addressed the concerns raised by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).