No Indian firm Will manage the Power Holding Company of Nigeria

The two unions in the power sector had vowed not to allow any Indian firm to manage the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN). They are the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies (SSAEAC).
Officials of the unions told newsmen on Thursday in Lagos that it was a rip-off for the foreign firm to manage power in Nigeria.


Power Grid Corporation India Ltd was on Wednesday in Abuja given a five-million dollars management contract of the Transmission Company of Nigeria.

Mr. Joe Ajaero, NUEE's General Secretary, said the Indians would never be allowed to manage the electricity sector in Nigeria.

"The Indians are not welcome. We want to advise them to stay clear.

Any day they enter the transmission sector, we will leave it for them and the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE)," Ajaero said.

"As workers in the sector, the Indians cannot enter the sector as management contractors," he said.

He said Nigeria could enter into partnership with them but not to give them the authority to manage the sector.

Ajaero said no country had ever allowed its transmission lines to be run by foreigners because of its security implications.

The union scribe said the Indian company had tried to manage power sector in other countries but failed.

"I want to say without contradiction that the Indians are not good managers," he said.

He said experience has shown that Indians ran down the Machine Tools

Industry in Oshogbo and the Nigeria Railways, adding that bringing them through the backdoor to run the transmission lines was insensitive.

He said it was sad that this was taking place just as President Musa Yar'Adua has inaugurated a committee to implement the power sector reform.

Mr. Godwin Iheanacho, SSAEAC President, said the management of the contract ran contrary to labour regulations.

"It is also a treason because we are still in court over issues of the privatization of the PHCN, and the same company is given to a foreign firm to manage," he said.

Iheanacho described the development as undemocratic, accusing the National Council on Privatisation of not respecting the rule of law.


He lamented that it was when the sector had begun to show signs of improvement that the BPE decided to give it to an Indian firm to manage.

"For 22 years we did not add any megawatt to our grades because the government was ill-advised," he said.

He said the problem of power supply was generation and not workers.



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