NLC vows there will be no hike in fuel price

Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC has vowed to
resist any increase in the price of petroleum
products by the Federal Government has been
speculated. They said they totally kick against it and implore the
Government to do something fats about the scarcity
of petrol across the country. Read the press
statement they sent out after the cut. Since the last few weeks when scarcity of
petroleum products at sale stations became
noticeable, workers and the Nigerian people have
experienced excruciating hardship and trauma with
incoherent excuses from marketers and ostensible
helplessness from the Federal government as well as relevant agencies responsible to rectify the
deplorable situation. "The scarcity of the product and long hours at fuel
stations in queues have clearly slowed down
productivity and its attendant effect on service
delivery and production within the economy. "While importers claim the unnecessary delay in
obtaining import approvals from the Federal
Government, which enables them import the
products early enough to meet up with public
demands, is the cause of the scarcity; the NNPC
insists the products are available, but the marketers are hoarding products to deliberately increase
prices. "The recent announcement by the Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation NNPC that it has supplied 50
million litres of fuel to marketers and intensified its
monitoring exercise to check hoarding of the product
has not ameliorated, but heightened the sufferings
of Nigerians as prices have continued to skyrockets with a litre of fuel selling between N500 - N800 in the
parallel market. "Assurances by the NNPC notwithstanding, the
tirade and buck passing between the corporation
and marketers indicate an attempt to deliberately
inflict hardship on Nigerians so as to accept
increase in fuel prices. "We hope this is not the case, as the Labour
Movement will resist any attempt to further
impoverish the working people with increase in fuel
prices. "It is bad enough that our country have to be
importing products it produces, and scandalous that
government have not been able to fix the rot in the
petroleum industry despite promises publicly made
by successive governments between 1999 and now. "We believe the government can do better by
immediately bringing supplies of these products to
its normal status because the economy may be
halted soon should the scarcity continue.

Naij