Rights group urges N’Assembly to purge Budget 2015 of waste

CDHR decries exploitation of customers by electricity firms

THE Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has called on the National Assembly to review and reorganize the 2015 federal budget to rid it of wasteful expenditures.

   This is coming on the heels of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) condemnation of the exploitation and extortion of Nigerians by the Power Distribution Companies across the country, especially Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), despite the poor, erratic and epileptic power supply supplied to consumers.

   CSJ, which describes the budget as a ‘wasteful and unclear expenditures prevalent in the budget’ and that the National Assembly should set up a means to weed them out of the budget and should be reallocated to more pressing needs of the people.

He said that they want Government to restructure National Housing Fund by putting in laws and more managerial effectiveness.

   Lead Director of the centre, Eze Onyekpere, who made this known at a press briefing yesterday in Abuja, said “We are living in very hard and difficult times; the economic and social fabric of Nigeria is under pressure declining crude oil prices, reduced demand for our major export commodity, continued export of crude petroleum and import of refined products.

   “The Naira has taken a bashing and has been devalued twice in the last four months whilst the budget proposal seems to have been set upon unrealistic and unrealizable oil benchmark. In all this the ministry of finance has said that we are in hard times and they should be austerity measures but the budget doesn’t actually reflect the spirit and reality of the austerity measures as we still have a budget filled up with frivolities, wasteful and unclear expenditures prevalent in the budget.”

   He urged the NASS to use the ‘tooth pick and comb approach’ to review the budget.

CDHR demanded immediate reversal and removal of fixed charges, correct billings of consumer’s consumption, and commencement of equitable distribution of prepaid meters, which many Nigerians have paid for.

  Lagos State Chairman of CDHR, Comrade Buna Isiak staged a protest match from Ikeja bridge to the IKEDC office, Alausa, to register its grievances on the impunity, corrupt practices and what they termed “act of wickedness to the Nigerian masses, aided by the bad and highly corrupt leadership that constituted the position of authority in the country.”

  “Today, CDHR Lagos State branch, having seen the pains of the masses generated by these companies’ inefficiency and ineffectiveness, which has remained the major setback to our economy and decided thereof to mobilise the mass of the people as a test to condemn their act of dishonesty and deception. 

  “In totality we condemn the continuous exploitation and extortion of Nigerians, epileptic powers supply, crazy and high estimated billings, outrageous fixed charges and metre maintenance fees, among others. It is important to note that a legitimate government derive its sovereignty from the strength of the masses,” he said.

  Isiak noted that the CDHR has patiently collated the log of complaints from members of the public and Nigerians as a whole, coupled with its direct experience from various homes from the deliberate exploitation and extortion of Nigerians via poor, erratic and epileptic power supply throughout the nation by IKEDC, Generation Company (GEMCO), Distribution Company (DISCO), and others.   

  He added that this has crumbled the economy of the country and elevated the level of poverty to an unimaginable level, which has left the masses with no option than to find alternative means of power supply.

  Said he, “The defunct Nigeria Electric Power Authority (NEPA), saddled with the responsibilities of providing prompt and efficient power supply to the nation, which intended to effect the economy of the country positively and improve the masses welfare transferred its authority to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in the name of more efficient and constant power supply (privatization) and later to their subsidiaries such as IKEDC, GEMCO and DISCO.”

  The chairman stressed that the nomenclature kept changing with high hopes and promises of improvement but reverse is the system and services as of the moment, transforming from bad to worse, discharging poorest, erratic and epileptic services to the poor masses and the country as a whole.

  “The Nigerian masses are law abiding which reflected in the fulfillment of consumer and service provide agreement but these companies’ act of dishonest and disregard for service agreement have united the voice of Nigerians to say that if they have refused to render services appropriately, we shall also not pay their companies (no light, no pay syndrome),” he concluded.