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NLC threatens showdown with FG over new petrol price

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The Nigeria Labour Congress has vowed to do battle with the Federal Government over the new pump price declared on Wednesday.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu had announced a new pump price of N145 per litre for the premium motor spirit (PMS) following the removal of subsidy for the products.

But the organised labour, in a statement by the General Secretary, Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson, described the latest increase as the most audacious and cruel in the history of product price increase in the country.

In the statement, which reads in part, the NLC said: “The unilateral increase in prices of petroleum products by government represents the height of insensitivity and impunity and shall be resisted by the Nigeria Labour Congress and its civil society allies.

“With the imposition on the citizenry of criminal and unjustifiable electricity tariff and resultant darkness and other economic challenges brought on by the devaluation of the Naira and spiraling inflation, the least one had expected at this point in time was another policy measure that would further make life more miserable for the ordinary Nigerian.”

Read also: Breaking: Petrol now N145, as FG dumps subsidy

The latest increase, NLC argued, is irrepressible and the cruellest in the history of product price increase as it represents not only about 80 per cent increase but it is tied to the black market exchange rate.

The process through which government arrived at this is both illogical and illegal as the board of the PPPRA is not duly constituted, it stressed.

“In our previous statements and communiqués, we had stressed the need for reconstituting the boards of NNPC and PPPRA and wean both away from the overbearing influence of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources who has assumed the role of a Sole Administrator.

“The allusion to the fact that the this increase was arrived at after due consultation with stakeholders is not only ridiculous and fallacious, it goes to show that the brief meeting held today during which government was advised to shelve the idea until at least it meets with the organised labour was disregarded.”
Expectedly, the Congress has asked the Federal Government to reverse the new price regime in the interest of the already impoverished Nigerians.

 

 

 

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