The Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC),has lamented the deteriorating energy crisis in the country.
President of the union,Comrade Ayuba Wabba,in its Easter message,attributed the prevailing chaos in the nation’s energy sector to the embrace of neoliberal and anti-people policies by successive governments.
According to him,the full deregulation of diesel, and aviation fuel has failed to deliver on its promises of abundant products supply and cheaper prices.
Nigerians,he said currently pay far more for diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel and yet the products are hardly available.
He added that while the promoters of deregulation have suddenly lost their tongues, the burden of the grand failure has been transferred to Nigerian workers and the public.
He said:”The same challenge in the downstream petroleum sub-sector manifests in our electricity subsector. Since the privatization of the power generation and distribution assets in Nigeria, the promise of constant supply of electricity remains a mirage. In the past one month, Nigeria has experienced about four episodes of national electricity grid collapse. Before this time, public electricity supply had deteriorated to some of its lowest in our history.
“This is despite humungous tax payers’ money that government invested as support funds for private investors that bought our public electricity assets. Yet, in the midst of these privatization anomalies, Nigerian electricity consumers are still denied pre-paid meters and forced to pay highly inflated estimated billings. If this is not neo-colonization of the Nigerian people, what then is?”
The Electric Power Sector Reform Act demands the review of the privatization exercise every five years.
He complained that the power sector reform has been on for more than five years, yet, there are no concrete plans to review the privatization exercise.
He reiterated call for the scrapping of the Electric Power Sector privatization program given its monumental failure to make affordable and constant electric power available to power the potentials of Nigerians and their businesses.
He also advocated the need for the total jettisoning of a deregulation policy that in the eyes of its cash-out promoters translates to wholesale importation of refined petroleum products which benefits only middlemen profiteers and their partners in the corridors of power.
He added:”Nigeria can and should refine its crude oil to generate refined petroleum products including diesel which is one of the easiest to refine bye-products of crude oil especially using modular refineries. Nigeria can make refined products constantly available to ordinary Nigerians at very affordable cost.
“It is salutary that amidst these very challenging and depressing conditions, Nigerian workers continue to show faith in their country and demonstrate the never dying hope for a better tomorrow. This is the reason we still turn up at our duty posts despite being owed arrears of salaries.
” It is the urge of this hope that never dies that motivates us to keep contributing to the cause of nation building and wealth creation. The Congress salutes this indefatigable spirit of Nigerian workers. We urge our fellow workers to keep believing that a new Nigeria that is worker and people-friendly is possible in our life time”
