The Oyo State Chapter of Coalition for Affordable and Regular Electricity (CARE) has condemned National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) for approving a new hike in electricity tariff to a value between 42.44 and 58.94 naira per KWh depending on the respective class of the electricity consumers.
The coalition, however, rejected the hike expected to be implemented from Wednesday September 1, 2021.
A statement signed by the Coalition’s Convener and Co-convener, Comrade Akinbodunshe Shadrack and Comrade Ayodeji Adigun respectively, stated, “CARE rejects both the approval of the new tariff hike and the subsequent directive by the NERC. This tariff hike at a time when the mass of the Nigerian working people are still struggling to cope with the adverse effects of socio-economic dislocations occasioned by both the COVID-19 pandemic and the pre-existing economic crisis is inhuman and shows that the Buhari government is highly insensitive to the plight and suffering of the Nigerian poor working people, who constitute the mass of the electricity consumers”.
The statement reads in parts:
“Moreover, even without the devastating economic crisis that Nigerians are going through at this present time, CARE does not see any justification for a new hike in electricity tariff. Given the fact that the previous electricity tariff hikes have not translated into any significant improvement in the electricity supply and its availability. Instead, the electricity supply remains epileptic while mass majority of the working people are forced by DISCO to pay heavily for darkness.
“It is in the light of this background, CARE demands an immediate reversal of the new tariff hike, while calling on the leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) to commence the process of a mass mobilisation of the Nigerian working people across the country towards a declaration of a 24 hour strike with a nationwide protest. This should be with the demand for the reversal of electricity tariff and the cancellation of NERC’s fraudulent cost reflective policy which is the basis for the recent series of electricity tariff hike.
“Again CARE rejects in totality the recent statement credited to one Engr Samuel Ayodele, the CEO of Ibadan Electricity distribution company (IBEDC) that electricity is an “economic service”. This a fraudulent attempt to ensure that only the rich will continue to have access to electricity supply while the working people are condemned into everlasting darkness.
“As far as we are concerned in CARE, electricity remains a social service and it is meant to be run and adequately funded by the government to satisfy the need of the working people and economic development of the country, not the profit interest of a few members of the billionaire class ,who are the owners of the distribution companies across the country.
“CARE demands issuance of prepaid meter to all consumers and immediate cancellation of the criminal segregation of electricity consumers on the basis of bands by the DISCOS. Electricity supply must be regular, accessible and affordable to all Nigerians without any form of discrimination based on economic or social status.
So far, the privatisation of the Power sector has been a fiasco, hence CARE remains resolute in its demand for renationalisation of the sector under democratic control and management of a Board that will include elected representatives of electricity consumers and workers in the electricity sector”
