As electricity tariff hike plunges businesses to total collapse, the Nigerian hospitality and tourism industry is under pressure to lay off millions of workers as they are unable to pay heavy bills under the new tariffs.
“To increase the tariff, as it is now it will force many in the industry to close shop. One can only imagine the number of jobs that will be lost in the process; the fear is that many of such business at the micro, small and medium levels will be forced out of business. Ezeudeh said, “There is a direct implication of electricity tariff hike on us. I can tell you authoritatively that we are the largest employers of labour after the government. We have a lot of workers in the hospitality industry in Nigeria.
“In Abuja here, we have about 1, 200 hotels and we are employing 90, 000 to 1 million people, you can imagine the impact it is going to have on Abuja alone if we close the job and throw some of these people into the labour market. The government is insensitive. They would have consolidated with stakeholders.
“Therefore if you want to increase electricity tariff this is not the time to do that because you have to take into consideration on how it affects the citizenry. Therefore as people and organizations we will keep pushing and complaining until the right thing is done, and nothing is done we will not keep quiet. The media need to join us in this struggle because we are all Nigerians and are affected by the hike”, Saleh said.