The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Enugu Distribution Zone, has embarked on an indefinite strike in the South-East to protest non-implementation of the 50 per cent salary increment approved by the federal government for workers in the power sector in 2011, and other unsettled benefits.
When LEADERSHIP WEEKEND visited the? zonal headquarters of PHCN? in Enugu yesterday, it was noticed that scores of residents were denied the opportunity to recharge their prepared metre cards.
It was also discovered that all the entrances to the PHCN office were under lock and key while frustrated customers of the company were sighted with long faces at the main entrance of the company.
Some of the customers who spoke to our correspondent alleged that the industrial action was part of plans by the aggrieved workers to frustrate the federal government’s efforts to revamp the power sector.
Hon Tony Nwachukwu, a resident of the state, who was denied the opportunity to recharge his card, told our correspondent that one of the labour leaders informed him that the revenue section of the company where people recharge their cards had been shut down indefinitely.
Nwachukwu said the implication of the strike was that Enugu might be thrown into darkness.
He lamented that the strike was declared during the Easter celebration and insisted that closing down the revenue section of a federal government agency was pure sabotage.
Nwachukwu disclosed that residents of Enugu State were in support of the privatisation of PHCN and called on government to intervene swiftly to prevent the workers from killing the joy of the masses during the ongoing Easter celebrations.
It was gathered that the strike was declared after a meeting of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) in Enugu yesterday.
Leaders of the union were said to have? frowned at the poor attitude of the PHCN management in the zone to the welfare of the workers.
In a telephone interview, NUEE assistant general secretary, Comrade Cyprain Ndubuisi Akoh, disclosed that the strike was an option to compel the PHCN management in Enugu zone to settle the arrears of various benefits and allowances due to the workers since efforts to resolve the issues through dialogue had failed.
PHCN workers in the zone, he stated, were yet to be paid the 50 per cent salary increment approved by the federal government since last year, even when their counterparts in other zones had been paid.
According to him, a few workers in the zone who had been paid were shocked to discover that the amount was added to their salary as an allowance and not computed into their monthly pay.