Unnecessary hike in electricity tariffs

The condescension that Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola has for poor people is well-known as most of his actions as governor of Lagos State showed us. As a Lagos resident not living in the Lekki-Ajah axis, Ikoyi or Victoria Island, I knew well how those of us on the mainland suffered from some of his actions and inactions.

It is therefore not surprising that the minister for works, power and housing does not see anything amiss in the recent hike in electricity tariffs by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC). Condemning the previous regime as lacking the courage to do the ‘right thing’ was, as usual, in tandem with his way of talking himself out of any difficult situation. Remember that popular statement, “May your loyalty not be tested”?

His analogy of quinine and malaria does not work well too especially for people like me who, due to allergy, cannot take quinine despite the fact that malaria is a constant disease in our clime. “It is a painful pill that I must appeal that we swallow. It is like quinine and malaria. It’s painful; it’s not sweet, I know that, but I do it because we are not left with many choices,” Fashola said while on a visit to Lagos last week. For those of who have followed the privatization trajectory in Nigeria very well, a common refrain of its proponents is usually ‘there is no alternative’ and this is not always correct. By the way, after each trip to the hospital for malaria treatment usually resulted in itching all over my body, my mother started speaking out against chloroquine, a brand of quinine. Fortunately, prophylactic drugs came to my rescue just like another, Phenegal, hope I got the spelling right – will be added as sleep inducer to lessen the burden for those who are allergic to quinine.

But as the protests by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) the two major labour unions in the country showed last week, there is no drug to reduce the effect of this quinine we are being begged to swallow. Watching an official of the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company last week on CHANNELS Television spoke tongue in cheek, at least that’s how I interpreted his words, that his organisation had installed meters for her customers nearly made me choke on my food. I’m one of the IKEDC customers and I know how long some of us have applied for pre-paid meter, as they are called here, to help us checkmate the fraudulent billing we are forced to swallow monthly without any response from the organisation. So to now hear the official saying they have installed 50,000 prepaid meters as incentives for consumers to embrace the hiked tariffs is far from the truth.

As Fashola noted, this is the first major decision this administration has taken in the power sector and one that we can safely say was not well thought out. Giving the lame excuse that the Jonathan administration lacked the courage to take such step is pushing the blame as this government is always quick to do. It is the same government that celebrated the generation of 5,000 megawatts as a major achievement yet most houses in the land are still in darkness forgetting conveniently that while generation is an issue, a major component of our power conundrum is transmission. Maybe our minister can tell us how justified an increase in electricity tariff is when consumers still do not know the quantity of electricity they are consuming. How do you continue with estimated billing and yet raise tariffs? A major factor for the telecommunications revolution is the fact that consumers know how much they spend whenever they make a call or send a text message and can decide whether to continue with the transaction or terminate it.

The opacity in Nigeria’s power sector is astounding and until this is sorted out, the government should not think of tariff hike. I decided not to bother readers with the tariff hike detail because I don’t see a justification for it. Perhaps the honeymoon between citizens and the Buhari government is not over and that’s perhaps why most Nigerians have not joined the crusade against this unnecessary hike. Claiming that it will take a while before they can give consumers prepaid meter is not in tandem with the facts on ground. I know a company along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway that took a facility from a major bank towards the production of prepaid meters but has gone under due to lack of patronage from power distribution companies.

Dear Mr. Fashola, this hike is not justifiable, whether it is part of the roadmap or not.