•Challenges World Bank, AfDB’s Mission 300 strategy, backs public control of power
The African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) has rejected the privatisation-driven approach to solving Africa’s energy crisis, as the continent cannot achieve meaningful industrialisation without public control of electricity.
ITUC-Africa General Secretary, Comrade Akhator Joel Odigie, who spoke journalist at a recent meeting of over 60 African climate-change experts, focal persons and specialists, said the World Bank and African Development Bank-backed Mission 300 initiative could not effectively address Africa’s energy poverty through privatised electricity.
Odigie said Africa should be able to point to at least one industrialised society that achieved industrialisation on the back of privately controlled electricity.
“Africa should point to one industrialised society that has industrialised on the back of private electricity. One. They should point to one. There is none,” he said.
Mission 300 is aimed at expanding electricity access across Africa, where about 600 million people, according to Odigie, remain without access to electricity.
But the ITUC-Africa chief said the initiative’s privatisation pathway could worsen exclusion, particularly for rural communities and low-income households.
“A privatised effort cannot give people electricity. It is not possible, especially those that are in rural areas,” he said.
Using Nigeria as an example, Odigie said electricity privatisation had failed to guarantee reliable access, while rising tariffs were making power increasingly unaffordable.
“They are privatised. Do you have electricity? And the popular saying is that you pay for darkness,” he said.
He also warned that further increases in electricity costs could undermine industrial production and job creation, arguing that electricity remains a strategic component of economic development that requires strong government intervention.
According to him, “It is a commanding height of the economy, and any commanding height of the economy must be state-led if it has to have any meaning in pushing society towards industrialisation.”
Odigie said ITUC-Africa was therefore pushing its “Restore and Reclaim” campaign, which seeks to return electricity to public control and promote greater access for communities and rural populations.
On just transition, he said Africa’s transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy should not sacrifice the continent’s development aspirations or leave workers and vulnerable communities behind.
“We should transit in a way that does not leave people behind,” he said, insisting that countries responsible for much of global pollution should provide the resources needed to finance a just energy transition in Africa.
Odigie also faulted what he described as growing inequality across the continent, warning that the working poor were expanding despite being employed.
“They are working, but their pay cannot take them home,” he said, blaming widening inequality on factors including state capture, plutocracy, illicit financial flows and weak social protection.
COURTESY: tribuneonlineng.com
