TVC E, BUSINESS – The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Ayuba Wabba says the increment in the price of kerosene was not transparently implemented and labour rejects the hike.
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA) announced the increment from N50 to N83 last week.
PPPRA, in its product pricing template, stated that the N83 per litre price applies only to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Wabba, in a chat with The Nation, said with the dip in global oil prices, Nigerians should be paying less for petroleum products, including kerosene.
“But the truth is that with the current global price of crude oil, we should even be paying lower than what they have come up with at the moment,” he was quoted as saying.
He further said: “So, it’s clear that it is just a price increase and what we have kept on saying is that there is still a lot of element of corruption in the system even in Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) itself.”
“I believe that if there is a transparent process in place, Nigerians should be paying less under the current dispensation. There is continuous funding of crude oil import in many parts of the world. But because of inherent corruption in the system, which we discovered in the aftermath of the 2012 subsidy scam, clearly we now know that both the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, the PPMC and some oil marketers cannot isolate themselves from the mess we’re in right now.”
When probed on how organised labour will respond to the hike, he said: “We have looked at the issues squarely and seen the challengesand our conclusion at NLC is that we reject the increase and we’re going out to actually mobilise and then come up with an appropriate respond strategy.”
