Transmission Plant
TVCE, BUSINESS – Organised labour and Civil society organisations in Nigeria say only a reversal of the recent forty five per cent increment in electricity tariff will guarantee industrial peace and harmony.
They insist arbitrary increase cannot take effect when there is a subsisting court order restraining electricity distribution companies from going ahead with the increment.
Correspondent Joke Adisa reports that Nigerian workers and their leaders made good their threat to picket distribution companies, the regulatory commission and the National Assembly.
They are bent on registering their displeasure at the new tariff regime which took effect from the first of this month.
The take-off point is the Labour House recently renamed Pascal Bafyau House.
The protesters file into the streets causing traffic jams and chanting solidarity songs
Placards in hand, they head for the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company where they insist that the electricity tariff shouldn’t be hiked until all consumers are provided with pre-paid meters
Civil society organisations were also duly represented at the mass rally.
Their representatives want the anti-corruption fight of the present administration extended to probe the processes leading to the privitisation of PHCN.
From the Zone five office of the distribution company, the protesters head for the office of the electricity regulatory commission.
Their message remains unchanged: Increment in tariff must be put on hold until all consumers are metered.
At the National Assembly Complex, Senate President, Bukola Saraki leads other federal lawmakers to receive the protesting activists.
He assures the workers that they have the National Assembly’s support, in fighting against policies that seem to add to the woes of the common man
