In October, workers of the firm had petitioned the electricity regulatory authority, accusing the management of the company of discrimination, poor conditions of service and promoting disparity in salaries.
PREMIUM TIMES published a report highlighting allocation of outrageous salaries and perks to some members of the top management and their cronies.
The publication showed that in spite of operating at a loss since taking over the business in 2013, AEDC was still issuing hefty monthly pay cheques, as high as between N1.9 million and N36 million, to these top officials.
Workers also complained about recruitment into the firm.
In a swift reaction, the regulator, NERC, wrote to AEDC inviting its management to a crucial meeting within one week to discuss and resolve all issues raised by the aggrieved workers.
After defaulting by deadline, four officials of AEDC finally appeared before NERC on Tuesday.
The firm however failed to respond to concerns raised in the letter.
Its officials were asked to return to NERC on Wednesday with responses, said NERC’s Deputy General Manager, Enforcement/ADR Unit, Chijioke Obi.
Earlier, Chairman of the Commission, Sam Amadi, had told PREMIUM TIMES that every issue concerning workers’ salaries must receive approval from National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission in line with public service regulations.
The Director General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE, Benjamin Dikki, who is a member of the Board of AEDC, said he was yet to be briefed on the crisis.
Following the successful privatization of the power sector, the AEDC had emerged as one of the 11 successor power distribution companies (DISCOs) from the defunct PHCN with a mandate to undertake electricity distribution activities and related business in Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
Although owned 60 percent by KANN Utility Company Limited, a joint venture between Xerxes Global Investment Ltd, CEC Africa Investment Ltd and Abuja Electricity Distribution Plc, the Federal Government still kept 40 percent equity through the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE and the Ministry of Finance.
The firm’s financial statements show that as at December 31, 2014, AEDC declared a loss of about N25.61 billion, despite its revenue increasing from N36.01 billion in 2013 to N48.1 billion during the year.
Notwithstanding the huge loss, the report showed that AEDC’s administrative expenditure nearly doubled – from N13.67 billion in 2013 to N24.93 billion in 2014.
A major makeup of the high administrative expenditure, the financial statement showed, was the geometrical increment in the pay of its top officials.
The company’s highest paid director (believed to be the Managing Director) had his salary reviewed by over 640.7 percent from N5.67 million monthly in 2013 to N36.33million in 2014.
Equally, six directors who received between N3.5million and N4million a month in 2013 also got a hefty raise to between N145 million and N150 million annual pay.
The officials’ pay did not include another N719.7million spent on “salaries and other short-term benefits to key management personnel compensation.”
A major part of the workers’ petition also accused AEDC management of allowing a recruitment process that was fraught with irregularities that ignored established regulations and guidelines in public service employment.
The workers had claimed in their petition that the recruitment process was highly discriminatory in favour of new employees, who lacked the technical competence and practical experience on the job.
While new employees pocketed between N1.2 million and N1.9 million per month as salaries, the workers claimed majority of qualified and even more critical staff absorbed from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, received peanuts of between N50,000 and N200,000 per month, irrespective of qualification and experience.
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