By Bamidele Aremu
A partial blackout occurred in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State on Thursday after a protest by some employees of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) over alleged poor and unfriendly working conditions.
It was gathered that the protesting staff locked the gates of the company’s two business offices located at Challenge and Baboko New Market in Ilorin.
The protesters, who carried placards with various inscriptions, stated that they were demonstrating against inadequate welfare facilities provided by the company.
Some placards reads: “IBEDC should prioritise staff welfarism; IBEDC: no more half salary; IBEDC: pay our PFA, Union and Cooperative deductions now and; do you expect 100 per cent performance without materials and tools,” among others.
The secretary of the state branch of National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Comrade Ayodele Peters, said the workers were being paid half salary by the management as monthly compensation.
The secretary said: “All deductions made by the company such as pension funds, union fees and cooperative contributions were not remitted by the company to the appropriate bodies.
“So, that made it difficult for our pensioners to access their money from the pension managers while our members could not get loans from the cooperative society because the management of IBEDC did not credit the account of these bodies after deduction from the workers salaries.
“The management laid off some workers of the company on Monday while rumors was rife that more workers would get their letters of sack today or tomorrow adding that all these laid off workers would not have access to what the management had deducted from their salaries when they were in service because they have not credited the pension managers.”
As at the time of filing this report, efforts to get the reaction of the management proved abortive as the phone number of the Corporate Affairs manager of IBEDC, Olori Busolami Tunwase, was not reachable
However, an IBEDC staff who spoke to National Pilot under anonymity on Friday disclosed that the crisis rocking the organization which led to the protest has been resolved.
“The issues have been been laid to rest and all parties involved have reached a consensus. The people of Ilorin are to expect full restoration of power soon,” he said.
