The Federal Government has appealed to the organised labour in the country to shelve the nationwide indefinite industrial action scheduled to commence on Monday.
The proposed industrial action is to protest the hike in the price of fuel and electricity tariff.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, made the appeal on Saturday at a press conference in Lagos.
While pointing out that the industrial action would bring more hardship to the generality of Nigerians, he explained that the deregulation which informed the hike in fuel price was carried out in the best interest of the Nigerian populace.
His words: “We wish to appeal to organised labour to shelve its planned strike, which can only bring more hardship to ordinary Nigerians.”
He explained further: “Let’s start with deregulation. Ordinary citizens are not the beneficiaries of the subsidy on petroleum products that has lasted for years. Between 2006 and 2019, a total of 10.4 trillion Naira was spent on fuel subsidy, most of which went to fat cats who either collected subsidy for products they didn’t import or diverted the products to neighbouring countries, where prices are much higher. Instead of
subsidy, ordinary Nigerians were subjected to scarcity of petroleum products. They endured incessant long queues and paid higher to get the products, thus making the subsidy ineffectual.
“Apart from that, the truth is that the government can no longer afford the cost of subsidy, especially under the prevailing economic conditions. Revenues and foreign exchange earnings by the government have fallen by almost 60%, due to the downturn in the fortunes of the oil sector. And there is no provision for subsidy in the revised 2020 budget. So where will the subsidy money come from? Remember that despite the massive fall in revenues, the government still has to sustain expenditures, especially on salaries and capital projects.”
The minister said government was not insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.
He said the full deregulation of the petroleum sector and the service-based electricity tariff adjustment would in the long run benefit the ordinary people.
Explaining the situation surrounding the increase in electricity tariff, Mohammed said:
“The truth of the matter is that due to the problems with the largely-privatised electricity industry, the government has been supporting the industry. To keep the industry going, the government has so far spent almost 1.7 trillion Naira, especially by way of supplementing tariff shortfalls. The government does not have the resources to continue along this path. To borrow just to subsidise generation and distribution, which are both privatised, will be grossly irresponsible.
“But in order to protect the large majority of Nigerians who cannot afford to pay cost-reflective tariffs from increases, the industry regulator, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), has approved that tariff adjustments had to be made but only on the basis of guaranteed improvement in service. Under this new arrangement, only customers with guaranteed minimum of 12 hours of electricity can have their tariffs adjusted. Those who get less than 12 hours supply will experience no increase. This is the largest group of customers.”
He explained further: “Government has also noted the complaints about arbitrary estimated billing. Accordingly, a mass metering programme is being undertaken to provide meters for over 5 million Nigerians, largely driven by preferred procurement from local manufacturers, and creating thousands of jobs in the process. NERC will also strictly enforce the capping regulation to ensure that unmetered customers are not charged beyond the metered customers in their neighbourhood. In other words, there will be no more estimated billings.
“The government is also taking steps to connect those Nigerians who are not even connected to electricity at all. As you are aware, under its Economic Sustainability Plan, the government is providing solar power to 5 million Nigerian households in the next 12 months. This alone will produce 250,000 jobs and impact up to 25 million beneficiaries through the installation, thus ensuring that more Nigerians will have access to electricity via a reliable and sustainable solar system.”
