Not many Nigerians were thrilled when the FG began payment of the proposed minimum wage with a promise to pay civil servants arrears.
And the reasons were obvious, one of them being the recent hike in electricity bills.
A recent report quoting the FIJ calculation clearly indicated that average minimum wage earners spend at least 57.3 percent of their salaries on electricity bills if they use only seven appliances for a month.
When the Federal Government announced in September that it would start paying the proposed minimum wage of N70, 000, with a promise to pay civil servants in the areas from July and August, not many Nigerians were excited about the news.
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And the reasons were obvious, one of them being the recent hike in electricity bills.
A recent report quoting the FIJ calculation clearly indicated that average minimum wage earners spend at least 57.3 percent of their salaries on electricity bills if they use only seven appliances for a month.
The FIJ report noted that while the wage increase was a good development for workers, the cost of living has rendered the wage increase almost insignificant.
The report spotlights the cost of electricity alone and its impact on workers’ wages.
According to a National Income, Salaries and Wages Commission (NISWC) document, civil servants under the Consolidated Public Service Salary Structure would earn N930,000 per annum. This means that a minimum wage earner would go home with a salary of about N77,500.
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) announced a 300 percent increase in electricity tariff for those in the B and A service categories in April.
According to the Vice Chairman of the NERC, Musliu Oseni, the tariff hike meant that customers who formerly paid N66 per kilowatt per hour would now pay N225 for the same unit of electricity.
In the announcement, the NERC also said that only users in the band A service category, about 15 percent of the entire customer population, would be affected.
Surprisingly, a few months after the announcement, Nigerians were faced with a flagrant and unsolicited transfer to Band A service category without prior notice.
Some people protested the move, while others took to social media to vent their anger and frustrations.
Decrying the move on his X handle, a financial expert, Joe Abah wrote: “I have confirmation that @aedcelectricity has now put me in Band A with no notice at all. So, the N100,000 electricity top-up now lasts just seven days. I have been paying. Who has a gadget that can help me monitor whether I am getting a minimum of 20 hours of light a day, please?”
Other Nigerians who spoke to DAILY POST reechoed their frustrations.
A small scale business owner, Chidi Adum equally lamented, saying, “How can you want to squeeze us to pay such a ridiculous tariff? And switch us to Band A without notice?”
According to Ayodele Dipo, a civil servant with the Lagos State Government, who lives around the Amuwo Odofin area of the state, he was taken to Band A without notice and ever since that development, almost all his earnings have been consumed by electricity bills.
He said: “Before this latest development, if I buy N5000 credit, I will use it for two to three months. But since I was taken to Band A, the N5000 doesn’t last for one week.
“At least in the last 20 days, I have bought N5000 credit thrice. You can imagine the effect on my income.
“In fact, it has made a mess of the new minimum wage. The government should do something about this. When you add the cost of fuel to that, you will understand the plight of low income earners like us.”
Kenneth Enobong, a security guard with one of the security firms in Lagos, also lamented that the new minimum wage of N70,000 has not impacted on him in any positive way, instead, things seem to have worsened.
“It is like these electric distribution companies were waiting for the new minimum wage because, with this recent hike in electricity bill, the minimum wage doesn’t take us anywhere.
“Some of us have chosen to remain in darkness most of the days because our salary cannot cope with the electricity bills and other bills.
“We need to feed our families, take care of the health needs of our families including catering for children’s school fees and other bills.
“So, in the order of priorities, electricity can wait but food can’t wait; health needs can’t wait, and sometimes, you may not want to stop your children from going to school because you want to enjoy electricity.
“So, that is the predicament we have found ourselves in and we are pleading with the concerned authorities to do something to reverse the hike. It is killing us; the new minimum wage can’t do anything,” he stated.
Also, a cleaner with the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, Mrs Gladys Ameh decried the hike in the electricity bill, saying it is taking a serious toll on her monthly salary so much that she has not felt the impact of the new minimum wage of N70,000.
She said: “I don’t know what they want us to do in this country. How can we use almost the whole of our monthly salary to pay for electricity bills?
“The new minimum wage is not even enough; in fact it would have been better to leave us with the old minimum wage and old electricity rate, instead of all these Greek gifts.
“The government should do something about the electricity bill if they want the new minimum wage to have any impact on some of us who are low income earners.”
Dr Pogu Bitrus of the Middle Belt Forum, MBF, also commenting on the development, described it as quite unfortunate.
He noted that the earnings of Nigerians were being eroded not only by electricity bills but also by energy bills generally.
“Whether it is electricity, fuel burning in your car, or transportation, energy is sapping a big chunk from our earnings. What people forget is that civil and public servants constitute only a fraction of society.
“Everybody is suffering from this load which has been thrown on our neck as a yoke to carry. It is unfortunate that bad governance has brought us to where we are.
“Whatever it is, I am not one who will talk about which political party is better or worse, but the All Progressives Congress, APC, needs to look into their methodology of governance.
“Up to the time former President Goodluck Jonathan left, all of us know and we can’t pretend about it, that things were better. I think I changed one dollar for N198 that time.
“Think about what is happening today; who brought us into this mess? It is the APC government, so the APC government needs to look inward and try to find out why things are not working well with us.
“Is it because we have the wrong people in the government or that round pegs are in square holes? Whichever, things are not working and things are degenerating.
“Initially, there was this propaganda by former information minister, Lai Mohammed that the earning from the crude oil sales was not that much.
“Today, the earnings have greatly improved, but things are still not working.
“The government needs to look at the people appointed as lieutenants to ensure that we have the right people who can do the right thing so that this economy can go back to where it was, because today we are only going deeper and deeper into mess.
“I am not entirely blaming this particular government because before this government came in, we had already gone into a mess.
“But, this government, in a bid to survive, has brought in policies that have messed the country more, and the naira was devalued by over 100 percent. This has affected the price of everything.
“The issue is that policies like this on electricity, which is just a component of the energy policy, should be revisited so that the burden on Nigerians will not be so high because we are paying so many taxes on energy, petrol, and others.
“It appears the government is giving on one hand and taking it from the other hand. So, these policies are not good for nation-building because while you are trying to develop the nation, you don’t impoverish everybody to a level of capitulation.
“The hike in electricity costs needs to be revisited and possibly reversed because actually it is sapping people’s incomes. It is not only the minimum wage earners’ salaries that are being sapped; the elites are also feeling the heat.”
To corroborate Dr. Bitrus’ assertion that the elites were also feeling the heat, an electrical engineer with a private firm in Lagos, Mr. Kevin Abayomi, said they had been warned in their office to switch off all appliances at the close of work because the company had been moved to Band A and the bills have been massive.
He said: “Just last week, our Human Resources Manager told us that we should cultivate the habit of switching off all the systems and UPS in the office at the close of work every day.
“She said our electricity bill used to be N90,000, but with the latest transfer into Band A, the bill just jumped to N500,000 per month.
“Can you imagine the increase? So, both the low income earners and the elites are feeling the heat of the electricity hike.
“The government just needs to intervene and reduce the people’s burden.”
