By Adewale Sanyaolu
Eleven Electricity Distribution Company (DisCos) in Nigeria said they lost N2.5billion in revenue to the strike embarked upon by electricity workers of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The industrial action by the TCN workers was declared by its umbrella union, the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE)
Executive Director, Research and Advocacy, Mr. Sunday Oduntan, disclosed the revenue loss during an interview on Arise Television at the weekend.
Oduntan who frowned at the shutdown of the national grid by TCN workers, said such action was uncalled for and capable of further weakening investor’ confidence in the nation’s power sector.
He said if the industrial action had persisted for one week, it would have been capable of bringing the entire power sector value chain to a total collapse.
The ANED Executive Director equally took a swipe at the Federal Government, saying its failure to address some of the concerns of the union which NUEE said it had raised and notified them of same since May this year led to the strike.
Oduntan said there is a misalignment in the power sector value chain because DisCos and GenCos have been privatised while the TCN is still 100 per cent owned and controlled by the Federal Government.
He maintained that the transmission arm of the power sector value chain is the most problematic, advising Government to let go of it and allow private operators come in to run it in an efficient and effective manner.
The ANED boss disclosed that under the current structure, the TCN is not capable of wheeling out the total quantum of electricity generated by the GenCos because it lacks the capacity to do so.
On cost reflective tariff, he said the players in the sector cannot pretend not to know that all is not well because the tariff as presently in operation is not capable of meeting the demands in the sector, adding that this was responsible for underinvestment in the industry.
However, a former Commissioner at the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Mr. Eyo Ekpo, disagreed with Oduntan, saying the big elephant in the room is not tariff.
He explained that the issues around tariff was historical and that politicians should be held liable for that because they keep using the phrase, ‘‘We will give you electricity’’ thus making Nigerians to see electricity as a social service and right.
‘‘Electricity is a manufactured product just like Cocacola, bread, Milo, toothpaste among others. As a manufactured product, it has a cost. And if we want that product to be abundantly available and to grow with our size of population, we have to pay for it. It is just a logical and straight forward factor that we must accept.”
On the industrial action by TCN, Ekpo said it is an act of sabotage and criminal for anyone to hold the nation to ransom, especially with a service as critical as electricity.
He said in sane climes, the leader of NUEE should have been arrested by now, saying the union has continued to play the same card since the days of privatisation to hold the nation by the jugular.
He said NUEE prior to the handing over of power assets to the new investors insisted that all workers of the defuct Power Holding Company of Nigeria(PHCN) must be paid which the government acceded to.
Besides, he said they equally blackmailed Government that those paid off must be reengaged by the new owners the following day.
To address the frequent threats of the union and bring a lasting solution, Eyo called for the decentralisation of the grid system, saying the central grid system was not helping the country in anyway.