Power Outage, High Tariff: Union demands urgent review of Electricity Act

The Nigerian Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) on Friday called on the National Assembly (NASS) to urgently review the Electricity Act to protect consumers from incessant power outage and tariff increases.
The union also said that the measure would ensure stable supply of electricity by operators of the industry.
Mr Akoh Ndubusi, the Senior Assistant Secretary General of NUEE, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
According to Ndubusi, the call is necessary to put the power generation and distribution companies on their toes.
“Before the privatisation of the power sector we had about 4000 mega watt, but look at what is happening today, power generation has dropped a lot; so, how can Nigerians get the dividend of this privatisation.
“A lot of us are always running our generators and you know how much it cost to buy fuel now; it involves everyone in the society.
“We are not living in the moon; we all need electricity just as the other ordinary Nigerian needs it.
“We don’t need to blame anybody in the sector, instead, it is time for the government to look inward and marshal out plans on how to improve the privatised power sector,” he said.
However, he said that even though the power sector had been privatised, it was still the duty of the Federal Government to ensure that the sector was effectively supervised.
Ndubuisi noted that effective supervision and monitoring were the best ways the power distribution and generating companies would ensure steady generation and distribution of electricity to Nigerians.
“What these private people know is how to collect money and increase tariff; it is difficult for them to mount one transformer since they came on board.
“The vehicles they are using today, if not hired, are the ones left by former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
“So they have not added any value here since they came on board; the privatisation has not attracted any foreign direct investment.
“If you look at the transmission companies for instant, they cannot effectively supply electricity,” he added.
He alleged that some of the DISCOs do not have the capacity to distribute the mega watt sent to them to distribute to Nigerians.
“So it is important for government to take action on the power sector because if they leave it in the hands of these capitalists, we will go into total darkness with what we are seeing now.
“The Act must be reviewed because this is where the development of any country is when we are talking about creating jobs.
“If we have constant electricity in this country, every unemployed youth will look for one thing or the other to do and a lot of other things will fall in line.”
Besides, the scribe urged the Federal Government to pay them their outstanding benefits and severance packages. (NAN)