Festus Keyamo, Minister of State for Labour and Employment, has said the Federal Government did not increase electricity tariff, rather it only adjusted certain bands.
Keyamo stated this in an interview on Tuesday while reacting to reports of the increase, which dominated the news headlines earlier in the day.
According to the minister, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the electricity regulator, did not consult with him or other members of the committee working on the new electricity tariffs regime before the announcement on Tuesday.
“I am the chairman of the sub-committee consisting of Federal Government side and Labour that has been mandated to go round the country and interact and consult with stakeholders, the discos to find an acceptable and cost-reflective tariff that should be paid by Nigerians. We are still in the process of carrying out our assignment, we have not finished it,” Keyamo said on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“When I saw the story this morning, I consulted members of the team and they said it is not correct.
“There has been no increase in tariff. What we agreed to do was to freeze certain bands. You know we have band A, B, C, D and so on and so forth. So, in the interim, what we did was to adjust certain bands and to ensure that certain persons who are supposed to be on some bands are not wrongly put on some other bands.
“What has just been done is adjustment of certain bands but there has not been any increase in tariffs.”
The minister added: “We immediately called for a meeting on this issue and what NERC has released does not reflect what we agreed upon at the level of the committee. I can say I was not consulted and members of the committee also said they were not consulted.
“We are trying to fix a meeting for Thursday to find out exactly what happened and take it from there but I can assure that we will soon come out with a statement before Nigerians to show the true position of things.”
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