The organised labour, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has warned against planned fresh fuel price increment, saying it has fixed 27th January, 2022 for nationwide protests over the hike.
NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, who made this known, called on the Federal Government to have a rethink on developing locally produced fuel rather than craze for imported fuel.
“The NEC considered: That an increase in the pump price of the Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as ‘petrol’ by government will further expose Nigerian workers and the generality of the citizenry to acute deprivation, hardship and suffering as it would worsen the already established trend of hyper-inflation in the country.”
According Wabba, “The genesis of the crisis in Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sub-sector especially as it relates to the petrol pump price regime could be linked to a policy of importation based pricing template for refined petroleum products as against local production based pricing template.”
The labour helmsman sounded a note that ,”as long as the pricing of refined petroleum products is based on Importation pricing template which is heavily dependent on a volatile foreign exchange rate heavily skewed against the Naira, the price of petrol and other refined petroleum products will continue to rise beyond the reach of average Nigerian workers and citizens and that the foregoing informed the traditional position of the congress to reject incessant increase in the pump price of petrol which is usually disguised as deregulation or removal of fuel subsidy.”
Wabba added that, “The NEC, therefore, condemned plans by the Federal Government to increase the pump price of petrol.
NLC therefore resolved to reject and resist the planned increase in the pump price of petrol by the Federal Government which it described as extremely insensitive to the acute hardship being experienced by Nigerian workers and people.
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