. As NNPCL attributes increases to market forces
. NECA criticizes NNPCL’s action
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday, threatened to withdraw from the dialogue with the federal government over palliatives from the removal of subsidy from premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol.
This followed the decision by the NNPC Limited (NNPCL) to raise the pump price of petrol in its Abuja filling stations, from N537 to N617 per litre due to the interactions of market forces.
The Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPCL, Mele Kyari, speaking State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on the sudden price hike, said this is the evidence of the market regulating itself, “so that prices will go up and sometimes they will come down also.”
Insisting that there are no supply challenges, Kyari said: “When you go to the market, you buy the product; you come to the market, you sell it at the prevailing market prices. It has nothing to do with supply.
“We don’t have supply issues; there is robust supply. We have over 32 days of supply in the country.”
He added that “But there will be stability of supply and I’m also assuring Nigerians that this is the best way to go forward so that we can adjust prices when market forces come into play.
“Market forces have started to play; people have started having confidence in the market. Private sector people are importing products, but there is no way they can recover their cost if they cannot take market reflective costs.”
Labour kicks
However, the NLC accused the government of callousness, saying its palliative measures lacked transparency.
Specifically, a statement yesterday, signed by NLC President, Joe Ajaero, said: “It is important to inform Nigerians that despite having shown our readiness to commence work in the committees, the federal government, which convenes the meetings, is yet to inaugurate the National Steering Committee, thus, stalling the work of the proposed committees.
“If the government had wanted an expedited action, which Nigerians want more, the best approach would have been to quickly inaugurate the committees and allow them do their work. But as we write, nothing has been done, except the continuation of the borrowing spree and subsequent allocation to themselves.
“We do not want to continue to be part of the usual charade of committees with outcomes that are never implemented.
“We do not want to provide a cover for government to get away with the hardship it has imposed on the people. We do not want to legitimise impunity.
“As a result, if the government does not want to stop these fortuitous actions that it is pursuing in the name of palliatives, we will be forced to constructively review our engagement with the government on this vexatious issue and take matters in our own hands.”
“We have restrained ourselves from making further comments publicly on the vexatious issues around the recent, but unfortunate, unilateral hike in the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the guise of the so-called subsidy withdrawal, which has unleashed predictably as we had earlier warned unimaginable and unprecedented hardship, sorrow, anguish and suffering upon Nigerian workers and masses.”
We do not want to continue to be part of the usual charade of committees with outcomes that are never implemented. We do not want to provide a cover for the government to get away with the hardship it has imposed on the people. We do not want to legitimise impunity.
The NLC also criticised the proposal to pay National Assembly members about N70 billion and the judiciary N36 billion from the proposed N500 billion for palliatives on account of the subsidy removal.
It said: “We believe that this may amount to hush money and outright bribery of the other arms of government to acquiesce to the aberration.
“It is unconscionable that a government that has foisted so much hardship on the people within nearly two months of coming into office will make a proposal that clearly rewards the rich in public office to the detriment of the poor.
“What this means all this while is that the government is seeking ways of robbing the very poor Nigerians so that the rich can become richer. There is no other way to explain the proposal to pay a misery sum of N8,000 to each of the mysterious poorest 12 million households for six months, which amounts to N48, 000, and pay just 469 national legislators N70 billion or about N149 million each, while the judiciary that has about 72 appeal court judges, 33 National Industrial Court judges, 75 Federal High Court judges, and 21 Supreme Court judges and a total of about 201 judges receives a total of N35 billion or N174 million each.
“If these other two arms are projected to receive this, what members of the executive council will receive is better left to the imagination of Nigerians, perhaps, the balance of N150 billion will go to them.
“These proposals are not just unacceptable to Nigerian workers but are also dictatorial, thus, undemocratic. It is not a product of social dialogue, which would have produced collectively negotiated outcomes by critical national stakeholders.”
NECA criticizes price increase
Just like the NLC, Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) also criticized the increase of the petrol pump price from N500 to N617.
The Director-General of NECA, Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, said: “The petrol price going up adds to the burden that not only Nigerians are facing but also the organised businesses. Once the disposable income goes down the ability of average Nigerians to purchase is impaired. And once they cannot purchase, businesses cannot produce or cannot sell what they have produced.
“It is a worrisome trend and I want to call on the government to take a dispassionate look at all these issues. We will reiterate our position that government should not kill those that it is trying to save.
“We are kicking against the price. We cannot continue to be saying that Nigerians should sacrifice when we are not seeing corresponding sacrificial activities on the side of government.
“We are against this new price adjustment. Let the market take the lead, that is the expectation and not the ‘deregulated regulation’ that we are currently seeing. It is a bit confusing, and businesses and Nigerians need clarity on the direction that we are actually going.”
