Labour Minister Brokers Truce as Electricity Workers Suspend Strike

Striking electricity workers have promised to back down and restore power to the nation after they held a meeting with the federal government on Wednesday.

The National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) had earlier directed its members to go on strike and shutdown electricity, due to neglect of staff welfare and failure of Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to pay entitlements to the workers, among other contentious matters.

The Minister Of Labour And Employment, Chris Ngige had invited the striking electricity workers for an emergency meeting at his office to resolve the issues leading to the strike action.

Speaking after the meeting, Engr Chike Ben, President General, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Workers (SSAEC) said the issues leading to the strike could have been addressed earlier on if there was the right communication with all parties and vowed to end the strike.

According to him, “I thank the Minister or Labour and the Minister of State for Power, for their maturity in handling the issues that we brought up.

“These issues would have been tackled earlier if there was the right communication with all parties. But we’ll, as we have said, we have been given two week to report back to the full house. We assure the nation that such crises will be nib in the bud before it escalates.

On when the power will be restored, Ben said “Yes. You are going to have light today.

Briefing journalists on the outcome of the meeting, Ngige said after exhaustive deliberations on the issues in dispute, they agreed to constitute a bipartite committee to look into the grievances of the electricity workers and report back in two weeks.

According to the Minister, the members of the bipartite committee include the Minister of State for Power, Jeddy Agba (Chairman), Permanent Secretary, Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Permanent Secretary, General Services, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, representative of Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) and two representatives from NUEE and SSAEC.

The Minister said the committee has two weeks to report back to the whole house.

He said the meeting afforded them opportunity to thrash out all the issues in dispute, adding that his ministry has apprehended the dispute.