Power Sector Loses N7.7billion To Labor Unrest in Two Years” – Fashola

The minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has revealed that frequent industrial actions by workers in the power sector has resulted in the loss of about N7.734 billion revenue between 2014 and 2016.

Fashola made this known in Abuja on Thursday, April 7, while speaking at third triennial delegate conference of the Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, SSAEAC.

The Minister, who called on the sectors workers to begin to shed off their resistance to new private investors in the sector, said that a survey of strikes in the electricity sector and its affiliations which he conducted has shown that between April 2014 and March 2016, strikes embarked upon by electricity workers union in the country had resulted to N7.734 billion revenue loss to the sector.

He opined that today government employees cling more to their unions than to government to the detriment of expected productivity.

He bemoaned workers’ continuous resistance of private investors’ plans to upgrade the country’s power sector, as well as government’s policy implementation in the sector.

He noted that the workers have in this regard failed to realise that the unions do not pay their wages but the government and that the task of making sure that electricity is produced and supplied to Nigerians was a collective responsibility that the workers, who in turn rely on the sector’s revenue share.

“Our jobs is to provide electricity and get paid for it, we have no other job. If electricity is not enough, it means that we haven’t provided it, you and me. If there is not enough electricity it is not the fault of the president but me and you who are employed to work in this sector,” Fashola told the workers.