The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has said the current scarcity of fuel which has thrown Nigerians into another agonising experiences with long queues at fuel stations, would have been a thing of the past if the Federal Government had honoured its promise to kick start full operations at the Port Harcourt refinery.
President of the Congress, Comrade Festus Osifo, who briefed newsmen yesterday in Abuja at the end of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, said the contractors at the Port Harcourt refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd, had given assurances earlier in the year during an inspection to the refinery, that it would be running optimally by the first week of April 2024.
He said: “During that inspection, the contractors and those that are employees of NNPC told us clearly that the refinery is going to come into fruition in the first week of April or thereabout.
“Today, we are approaching the end of April and production has not resumed in the old Port Harcourt refinery “We wish to hereby call on the government to do everything within its antenna to ensure that the old Port Harcourt refinery starts production immediately. You could go outside today and you can see queues everywhere in FCT and in some other neighbouring states.
“But we firmly believe that if our refineries were working optimally today, such queues wouldn’t have been there.” Osifo, who commended the initiatives put forward for oil and gas production, however, insisted the need for the country to increase crude oil production in order to boost foreign exchange, stabilise the naira viz-a-viz the economy.
“Recently, the President signed an executive order regarding some incentives for oil and gas production because today there is a reduction in investment in the oil and gas industry. If you could remember in our last press briefing, we clearly stated that part of the reason we are having shortage of Fx today is because of our reduced crude oil production.
“If this country go back to the era we were producing 2.2 to 2.5 million barrels of crude per day, the inflow of forex amidst the high cost of crude oil today in the international market will give us a lot of foreign exchange in our country and it will help us in stabilising the naira.” On the new minimum wage, Osifo urged the committee on minimum wage to fast track their activities to address the difficulty of purchasing the high cost of goods and services amidst low purchasing power.
“The government has to do everything possible to ensure that this is fast tracked because the only way you can inflate your economy is when you empower the working class. The only way you can inflate your economy is when people have money to purchase goods in the supermarket, when people have money to go to the regular market to purchase items.
“If there is nobody to purchase these items, if the purchasing power parity is relatively low, what is going to happen is that the manufacturers will produce their goods and they will keep it because there wouldn’t be patronage from the people.”
While asking the Federal Government to pay the outstanding wage awards for March and April, as well as to ensure regular payment of the wage award, TUC called for the review of the labour laws, which it insisted was obsolete.
Condemning the non representation of organised labour in the committee set up to review, implement the Oronsaye report, TUC demanded immediate inculcation of its members of TUC into the committee, warning that the union would not accept any fallout that would impact on its members when the committee concludes without them.
On estimated billings and hike in electricity tariff, the TUC urged the government to prioritise mass metering to ensure every Nigerian only pay for electricity consumed, as well as stakeholders’ engagement whenever there were plans to increase electricity tariff.
Source: New Telegraph