Victor AHIUMA-YOUNG

TRADE Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has called on the Federal Government to immediately revisit and review the privatization exercise in the power sector, claiming that the privatization was a broad day robbery.

Speaking at the 10th Triennial National Delegates Conference of TUC, its President, Mr. Bobboi Kaigama, also decried the unending crises in the nation’s Petroleum industry, calling  on government and the multi-national oil companies to upgrade facilities to check both vandalism and other avenues through which the nation’s commonwealth is being siphoned

According to him: “There appears to be a gang up in the power sector to further bring untold hardship to the masses even without providing us with power. The Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, and Generation Companies, GENCOs, and some unseen forces should be very careful not to incur the wrath of Nigerians because of their crazy bills and unilaterally increased tariff without any corresponding improvement in power supply.

Rallies and protests were organised nationwide picketing their head offices, yet we have not noticed any change. They even insulted us more by sacking our members.

“We wonder why the electricity generation and distribution companies should disobey the highest law making body in country when the Senate intervened and called for a reversal of the new tariff. The objection of the masses and the intervention of the lawmakers were flagrantly disobeyed as neither was the hike reversed nor metres given to customers. Surely the imposition of crazy bills on consumers would be a crime with stringent penalties in saner climes, and even worse where the service is not delivered at all. For these reasons, we demand that government revisit and review the privatization exercise of the power sector immediately. If the DISCOs and GENCOs want to partner with us the consumers, let there be appropriate MOU duly signed to protect our interest instead of this broad day robbery. Our silence should no longer be misconstrued for stupidity.”

On the Petroleum industry, he said: “The peak of our pain as an oil producing country is the fact that it creates far more employment in countries where our crude is refined than it does in ours. Yearly, our tertiary institutions turn out about 612,200 graduates. Less than 5 per cent of that number gets employment, while 95 per cent join the over-saturated labour market. The on-going transformation in the oil and gas industry since the take-off of this administration is commendable, but we are still averse to unmitigated fuel importation that has drained our foreign exchange. We are aware of the intrigues that have bedeviled the oil and gas industry. We are not unconscious of how some cabals have in the last three months created artificial scarcity to force government to fully deregulate the downstream sector. While we accept that subsidy must go, we demand the following: that new refineries be built and existing ones made to work optimally to meet local and international demand, that all the bottlenecks that have hindered the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) be removed, and that the views of stakeholders – including TUC and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN – on the state of affairs of the oil industry be given serious consideration.

“Of recent, the revenue from the sale of crude has become so lean due to the activities of vandals. The country is presently losing over 800,000 barrels of oil daily, a development that has affected the power sector and reduced power generation to less than 1500 Mega Watts. The manufacturing sector is also having a feel of this calamitous situation as companies that cannot bear the burden of running their generators all day long are closing shop. We appeal to the government and the militants in the Niger Delta to embrace dialogue. We also call on the government and the multi-national oil companies to upgrade facilities to check both vandalism and other avenues through which the nation’s commonwealth is being siphoned.