Organised Labour has faulted the Federal Government’s claim of subsidising electricity supply to the tune of over N50 billion monthly.
The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan privatised the electricity sector in November 2013 and handed it over to 11 distribution companies and six generating companies.
Last month, Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, said the Federal Government was paying N50 billion monthly to subsidise electricity.
But Labour wondered why the government would be paying a subsidy for a sector it claimed to have been privatised.
Joe Ajaero, the deputy president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, asked the government to come out and tell Nigerians the level of money they are giving to the operators of the sector.
Ajaero, who doubles as the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees, asked the government to unmask the real owners of the Distribution and Generating Companies the sector was sold to in 2013.
He spoke at a briefing to unveil the burial arrangements for the late Secretary-General of the Medical and Health Workers Union, MHWUN, Silas Adamu.
The MHWUN scribe and his wife and daughter died in a road accident along Abuja – Kaduna.
Ajaero said: “How do you subsidise a commodity that is the private sector? Are they subsiding Garri, banana, and plantain that are in private houses? Having privatise the sector unless the so-called operators are blackmailing them (FG) and collecting money free from them (government).
“If a product is sold for N10 per kilowatt-hour you then privatise and started selling it at N30 per kilowatt-hour, with additional N20, and then you say you are subsidising it doesn’t add up. I don’t know where that money is coming from. It is not true.
“They (government) should come out and tell Nigerians the level of money they are giving to the operators. Nigerians should be able to unfold the real owners of the Discos.
“The names we are hearing none of them own the Discos whether the MD or Chairman or both and we need to know. We have said this again and again and people are saying subsidy. Then you say you have subsidised with about N1.3 trillion and you sold it at N400 billion and we don’t ask questions?
“Why will subsidy be more than the price?”
Source: The Nation
