Fuel price reduction not enough, NLC says
he Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday said the reduction in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from N97 to N87 per litre was a welcome development, but it however said “It is not sufficiently deep enough.”
In a statement by its General Secretary Comrade Peter Ozo-Eson, NLC said the N10 price slash translates to 10.3 per cent reduction compared to 33% price reduction in most countries, stressing that in the United States the price dipped to under two dollars from three dollars per gallon.
The NLC
noted that prior to the price reduction, government had substantially devalued the naira, thus ensuring that the full benefits of falling crude price are not passed on to Nigerians.
It also condemned what it called the haphazard manner of the reduction, stressing that the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) would have done justice to the matter, as the body statutorily empowered to do so.
“The price reduction we envisaged is the one that will operate within the institutional framework of PPPRA. The logic of our reasoning is hinged on the premise that only the PPPRA is charged with the statutory responsibility of determining petroleum product prices based on a relatively acceptable template.
“Accordingly, it is the PPPRA (on whose board we have NLC, TUC, NUPENG, PENGASSAN, NURTW) relying on the existing price template that could arrive at a fair and just price reduction. In other words, the reduction by the government, as welcome as it is, is by fiat,” the statement said.
Ozo-Eson added that it is unfortunate that the PPPRA board has been sidelined for so long and NLC demanded that the board be constituted immediately to enable it discharge its statutory functions.
However,
beyond the issue of price reduction of PMS, the regulatory agencies in the downstream sector of the oil industry need to protect Nigerians against monopolistic exploitation, NLC said.
The statement said: “We make bold to refer to the unacceptable price manipulation by monopolies in the oil sector where prices have remained unreasonably high for diesel the price of which is deregulated.
“Given the realities of the international oil market today, there is no reason for maintaining the price of diesel at N160 per litre. The regulatory agencies are called upon to break this stranglehold on consumers,” it said.