The Kebbi state government has began moves to mitigate the impact of the impending shutdown of electricity in the event that the threat of a strike action by the National Union of Electricity Employees comes to fruition.
Recall that the Union has written a letter giving notice of industrial action to the management of the Kaduna Electric KAEDCO on account of a plan by the management to sack 910 workers.
Planned to commence today at 12 noon, the strike will shut out the entire states being served by KAEDCO.
In its effort to ensure that the strike is either called off or mitigated to lessen its impact on the people of the state, a Kebbi state government delegation led by the former Head Service and now Special Adviser on Civil Service Alhaji Safiyanu Bena met today with the leadership of the organized labor in Kebbi state led by the Chairman of the Nigeria Labor Congress Kebbi state Comrade Murtala Usman. The two sides went into a closed door meeting to discuss ways forward.
The Labor Chairman gave a background to the impasse between the two in-house unions and the management of KAEDCO, explaining that it all revolves around the plan to sack over 900 workers on reasons to do with alleged overstapping and dwindling revenue base. He disagreed with the reasons based on their unscientific conclusions.
He noted that the labor Union is continuing to intervene to find a common ground to resolve the matter.
The Special Adviser on civil service Alhaji Safiyanu Bena and the Commissioner of Information and Culture Yakubu Ahmed BK highlighted the urgent need to resolve the matter quickly to save innocent people from suffering a long wood of electricity shut out.
They noted that the innocent customers and the Kebbi state government that have been dutiful and forthcoming in their commitment to payment must not be made to suffer from issues they are oblivious of.
The labor leadership had promised to continue to interface by engaging both the unions and the management to see how best to tackle this matter.
In the state government team are Alhaji Safiyanu Bena, Alhaji Yakubu Ahmed BK, Permanent Secretaries Suleman Augie and Dr Nasir Kamba among others. On the labor side are Comrade Murtala Usman, Kilani Abdulwaliyu, Abubakar Chika, Atiku Alkali, Labaran Alhaji Aliyu among others.
