Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) Rivers State has condemned and rejected the removal of fuel subsidy, the introduction of deregulations without any appropriate legal framework and the fixing of outrageous cut-throat prices for Petroleum products. It lamented at a time when Nigerian are passing through excruciating economic hardship.
TUC said it was tempted to believe that by the underhanded manner the fuel subsidy was removed to believe that government deliberately created a huge supply gap and subjected Nigerians to months of buying petroleum products at outrageous prices. It was to justify the removal of fuel subsidy as a solution to the current fuel price debacle.
TUC drew the attention of government to the fact that there is no provision for Petroleum subsidy in the 2016 budget and sought to know the plan of government, “and we were variously assured by government that there was no plan for deregulation or removal of fuel subsidy.”
TUC in Rivers, in a statement signed by Chika Onuegbu, its Chairman, called on the National Secretariat of TUC Nigeria to convene an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Trade union Congress of Nigeria on this and other burning issues. An example is the continued disobedience of Court Order on the 45 per cent hike in electricity tariff.
Moreover a good percentage of the figures being bandied around as cost of fuel subsidy is actually the cost of corruption in the fuel subsidy management process. The removal of subsidy is therefore more about transferring the burden of the payment for the corruption in the subsidy scheme from the government to the ordinary people!
TUC argued further: “We want to state very clearly that every country in the world has one form of subsidy or the other. So the issue is not about subsidy but how it is managed, the costs and benefits of the subsidy to the country.
“Moreover a good percentage of the figures being bandied around as cost of fuel subsidy is actually the cost of corruption in the fuel subsidy management process. The removal of subsidy is therefore more about transferring the burden of the payment for the corruption in the subsidy scheme from the government to the ordinary people!
“ From 1973 to 2016 there have been at least 19 increases in petrol pump prices with about seven of them within the period of this democracy. Government has curiously advanced the same argument each time – to use the money to provide ‘critical infrastructure’’’.
TUC argued that since the previous partial removal of subsidies “we have witnessed an alarming decline of the state of our public infrastructure since then. There thus appears to be an inverse relationship between the removal of fuel subsidy and state of public infrastructure (or what government calls ‘critical infrastructure’) such that the more government removes subsidy the worse our ‘critical infrastructure’ becomes.”
The labour union therefore said the subsidy removal has a serious credibility deficit and any argument to increase the pain of the ordinary Nigerian by subsidy removal is bound to attract negative reactions from the populace.
TUC further said the legal framework for the deregulation of the petroleum industry is nowhere as the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) was not passed by the 6th and the 7th National Assemblies. It is important to note that key objectives of the 2012 Petroleum industry Bill (PIB) was to “deregulate and liberalise the downstream sector” (Section 1f).
According to the TUC, the non-passage of the PIB has cost the country some $80 billion in lost investments. Even the 8th Senate on April 26th 2016 suspended debate on the new Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as most Senators kicked against its second reading.