President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole has denied reports that the NLC has pulled out of the palliative committee set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to fine-tune measures to cus-hion the effects of the recent hike in prices of petroleum products.
In a telephone interview with Daily Trust yesterday, Comrade Oshiomhole simply said “it’s not true. We didn’t pull-out of the palliative committee.”
But the NLC president, had in a couple of days, expressed some reservations about the mandate of the palliative committee, saying that a lot need to be done to strengthen the committee to enable it carry out a holistic appraisal of all the issues in contention.
Comrade Oshiomhole who faulted the terms of refe-rence of the committee, said that President Olusegun Obasanjo only emphasised the issue of working out measures to deal with the short and medium term consequences of the new price hike.
He said that the committee’s terms of reference must be broadened to enable it deal with all the issues that are necessary to find a holistic solution to the incessant hike in prices of petroleum products and find ways to ensure price stability of the products.
The NLC president said that the country must get out of what he referred to as “a vicious cycle of hike in prices of petroleum products,” in order to put an end to the strike action.
Meanwhile, the office of the deputy Senate President, Alhaji Ibrahim Mantu has denied a story carried in newspaper that, President Olusegun Obasanjo recently summoned and warned him for over stepping his bounds in his assignment as the chai-rman of the committee set up to cushion the effects of the incessant hike in fuel price.
The office further said, Senator Mantu has all the support of the president and was even as at yesterday holding consultations with stakeholders in the nation’s economy to address the terms of reference of the committee, while describing the said report as baseless.
On the pulling out from the committee by civil society representatives, a source said Civil Rights Congress withdrew from the committee because the committee could not address their expectation of reverting to the previous fuel pump price and main-tained that the NLC is still on the committee.
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