The Nigeria Labour Congress [NLC] has given the federal government two weeks from Friday November 18, 2011 to fulfil all agreements reached with workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria [PHCN] or risk an indefinite strike action by the labour unions.
Speaking on the situation in the Power Holding Company to journalists in Abuja, the General Secretary of the union, Mr Owei Lekamfa accused government of hiding under the guise of security threats to deploy armed soldiers who are used to guide foreign investors and the Bureau for Public Procurement on facility assessment tour without involving the management of the PHCN.
Lekamfa assured that PHCN workers will avoid shutting down power supply in the interest of the nation and her citizens who depend on power generation but government must fulfil its side of the bargain to ensure affordable, accessible and available power supply.
Previously, the NLC President Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar raised alarm over the Federal Government’s decision to deploy soldiers to PHCN offices and asked that they be withdrawn.
Speaking at an event in Kaduna, Omar expressed outrage at FG’s deployment of soldiers to occupy the corporate Headquarters of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) the Katampe, Wuse Zone 4 and Apo Transmission Stations in Abuja, the Olorunsogo centre, Ondo State, Ayede, the Egbin Power Station, the National Control Centre, Oshogbo and the Oshogbo Work Centre.
“The militarization of the electricity centres is an impotent and vain attempt by Government to force the deregulation of the PHCN. As you might know, there are on-going negotiations between the Federal Government and Electricity Workers on Power reform in the country. The next round of negotiations is scheduled to hold on November 22, 2011.
“To send armed soldiers to occupy electricity installations is therefore a calculated attempt to stall the negotiations and impose a pre-determined solution that will see the power sector sold as scrap to serving ministers and other cronies of the Federal Government. The industrial relations system must be made to work rather than Government and employers resorting to brute force”, the NLC president said.
Worried at what he termed ‘government’s insensitivity to the needs of the people’, Omar wondered why the chose to embark on poverty-inducing programmes and measures that can only push the populace to the wall and provoke a reaction by a long suffering populace.
“A you all know, the NLC and TUC signed an agreement with the Federal Government on July 19, 2011 on the implementation of the N18,000 Minimum Wage. It was agreed that the implementation will commerce from August 2011 with arrears paid from March 23, 2011. But as I speak to you four months later, the Federal Government has failed, or refused to implement this agreement. It appears that elements within Government with suicidal instincts want to provoke a general strike and mass protests on this issue.
“These elements also seem to be responsible for other provocative Government programmes such as a proposal to hike electricity tariff by 100 percent, re-impose toll-gates for un-motorable roads, and through a dubious constitutional amendment, annul the National Minimum Wage so that States and private employers can pay starvation wages. The NLC will never allow this to happen”, Omar said.
According to him, President Goodluck Jonathan’s deregulation policy is a deliberate attempt at devaluing the currency in order to devalue the N18,000 National Minimum Wage and as part of its poverty-inducing measures.
“As we have stated elsewhere, Government’s insistence to hike fuel prices by 120 percent will further complicate matters for a hungry citizenry that has to cope with growing mass unemployment and a non-existent social security. This will be an invitation to open revolt by the citizenry and the NLC will be there to lead the people”, Omar assured.
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