PHCN: MATTERS ARISING

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PHCN: MATTERS ARISING

Thursday, 02 September 2010

THE strike by workers of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) on Wednesday, August 25 was not a wildcat one — though sudden, it was led by the officials of the workers’ unions - but there

was something wild about it. The strike did not make much sense. Indeed, it was provocative. PHCN and its workers are as loved as a pariah. They have not earned the people’s love.

THE strike did not last as long as the routine power cuts that have become an uncomfortable fact of life in Nigeria. It was suspended after 24 hours. Blackouts sometimes go on for months in the country.

THREE unmet demands led to the strike, which was nationwide. The Olusegun Obasanjo government formulated a policy in which allowances replaced the provision of accommodation and vehicles for officials entitled to them. Government sold many of its houses, some of their mansions to officials who were then in possession of the buildings but were soon due for retirement. Even a presidential guest house was sold.

NOBODY has asked the former officials how they got the hundreds of millions of naira they paid for the houses. One of the officials said that the government house he bid for was acquired for him by his father-in-law who took a bank loan!

THE cash in lieu of accommodation and vehicle policy has not been a success. Many top public officials are still driven in government cars, some of them very expensive vehicles. These are not pool cars, but cars allocated to the officials and are also used to take the children to school and the cook to the market. Some senior PHCN officials drive cars with the company’s logo and these cars are parked in their houses. Some government officials are paid allowances, though they still live in official accommodation and drive cars bought by government.

THE Federal Government rushed to pay PHCN workers when they threatened to go on strike in July. But the N5 billion released fell far short of what the union leaders calculated as the unpaid arrears. Some workers were paid but many others were not. The union leaders accused the government and PHCN management of using “divide and rule strategies and techniques!

FOLLOWING the August 25 strike, the government is to present a supplementary budget of N57 billion to the National Assembly. It is the hefty balance of arrears the workers say is due to them.

GOVERNMENT did not refuse to pay the arrears because it disputed the sum the union leaders arrived at. Government did not say that there was anything wrong with the union leaders’ sums, though many government officials deliberately do not get their sums right. The hidden funds go into corrupt bank accounts.

GOVERNMENT waited until the PHCN workers went on strike before trying to give practical effect to what it had long promised to do. This is no way to run a government. A government that loses face loses authority. And a government that does not keep its word is not really morally superior to a con artist.

ABOUT 10,000 PHCN workers are said to be casuals. Some of them have been with the company for many years but they were not made permanent members of staff. Some of the casuals are said to be better qualified than many permanent staff members, but they are poorly paid.

THIS is intolerable. No Nigerian should be treated like an American plantation slave was treated in his own country. The PHCN management hired the casuals because it needed their skills. There is a job for them to do. The PHCN union leaders were right to demand an end to casualisation in the company.

PHCN workers also went on strike because their demand for a 150 per cent salary increase was not met by government. Government offered a 13 per cent increase and has apparently been paying it.

EVEN before the 13 per cent salary increase, PHCN workers were well paid, were better paid than many of the country’s workers. It is money their performance does not justify. PHCN union leaders make the false claim that the workers are unable to deliver on their mandate because they have no tools to work with.

THE truth is that there is incompetence, foreign engineers had to be flown in some years ago to fix a not very challenging fault - and slothfulness fed by corruption. It does not require sophisticated tools to remove a cable that has fallen on a road. But such cables are left lying on the road for days and some people are electrocuted.

PHCN workers do not deserve a salary increase at this time. The frequent power cuts recommend them for a pay cut. But government should meet the workers’ reasonable demands, based on its agreement with the union leaders.

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