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NLC Issues Fresh Strike Threat
•PPPRA: We’re working to reduce prices By Mike Oduniyi, Chris Nwachuku in Lagos, Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja, and Jaiyeola Andrews in Asaba, 12.09.2004
Fuel Price
Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday served the Federal Government a fresh seven-day ultimatum to ensure the enforcement of the agreed prices of petroleum products in every part of the country or face mass action. The NLC, in a letter to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Ufot Ekaette, and signed by the General Secretary of the Congress, Comrade John Odah, accused the Federal Government of manipulating product supply with the main objective of blackmailing Nigerians to abandon the prices agreed with the Senator Mantu-led Palliative Committee. However, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), also said yesterday, that it was exploring ways for further downward review of fuel prices. But the base line price of petrol will now move up to N50 per litre from N49, following an agreement reached yesterday between the PPPRA, the NLC and the the Independent Consolidation Coordinating Committee on Cushioning Measures, to restore the suspended N1 bridging allowance paid to transporters for hauling fuel from the southern depots to the northern parts of the country. The restoration of the allowance known as Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), eventually led to the suspension of the three-day-old strike by transport owners. The Federal Government, through negotiations brokered by the palliative committee, which was set up in the wake of a nationwide strike called last month by the NLC to protest hike in fuel prices, agreed to reduce petrol price to N49 per litre from N53. The agreement also brought the price of kerosene and diesel to N52 a litre. However, nearly one month after the agreement, petrol was still selling at between N49.50 and N52 per litre, while kerosene and diesel sold for N62 a litre. “The NLC demands of the government to wake up to its responsibility by enforcing official and agreed prices of petroleum products in the country. If by December 15, 2004 this has not been done, the NLC will lead the populace across the country to enforce the prices,” the NLC Acting President Comrade Ladi Iliya said yesterday. The Congress noted that there was deliberate creation of scarcity of petroleum products and that this trend could no longer be tolerated. “The reality we face in the country today is that the Federal Government has left the citizens at the mercy of marketers who are playing their traditional role of shylock. This is an intolerable and unacceptable situation,” Ilya said. NLC added that since the government had abandoned and vacated its duty and responsibility, Nigerians have no choice but to defend their collective interests. NLC said it has reason to believe that the government was manipulating product supply as a source of frustrating Nigerians so as to compel them to accept higher prices. “We are therefore compelled to call on the government to live up to its responsibility to Nigerians and obey its vow to serve the nation without fear or favour. It is unpardonable that government will continue to behave like a distant observer to a situation where the PPPRA and petroleum marketers aspire to hoard petroleum products in order to enforce higher price regimes,” Odah said. But in a communique issued at the end of a meeting of the Governing Board of the PPPRA, the agency noted that the recent fuel scarcity recorded in the northern part of the country particularly Abuja, was due to the strike by transport owners protesting the suspension of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF). “The meeting was however, informed by the President of Independent Petroleum Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Alhaji Habu Jajire and the Secretary General, Barrister E.B. Kanawa, who are members of the Board of PPPRA, that they had agreed to rescind the industrial action,” said the agency. The PPPRA while calling on other stakeholders in the downstream oil sector to relieve the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of the burden of fuel supply, also called on marketers to be ready to pass on the cost savings to the Nigerian public as much as possible in the coming new year. However, while the transport owners’ strike bites harder, the Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Danjuma Goje, has called on the National Assembly to intervene in the matter. The governor during a courtesy call by the House of Representatives Sub-Committee on PPMC/NAPR led by its chairman Tam Dapricia, said the strike had compounded the fuel crisis situation in the country. According to the governor, the bridging fee which was the cause of the strike should have been resolved amicably by the government. “This strike action embarked on by the independent marketers if continued is capable of causing untold hardship to the masses,” said Goje. Meanwhile, barely three weeks to Christmas, long queues of vehicles returned to all filling stations in Asaba, the Delta State capital where black marketers sell fuel at N70 per litre. Black marketers at their popular Abraka Park base in the state capital metropolis are making brisk businesses, as motorists who could not endure the long queues at petrol stations to resort to buying fuel for N70 per litre from them. Ten litre jerry can of fuel which ordinarily would have sold for slightly over N490 at the pump price, now sell for N700.
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