Financial Energy Review
……. Nigeria do not consume up to 120 litres of PMS daily……..
……..by Jenifer Dike…….
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has described the subsidy on petroleum products particularly on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise know as Petrol as the continuous payment for the devaluation of the Naira.
The President of NLC, camrade Aliyu Wanna while speaking on Channel TV, ‘Politics Today’ describe the subsidy being paid on PMS every year dating back to the military era as payment by government to devalue the Nigerian naira.
Wabba pointed out that the burden association with this payment on the devaluation of the Naira is being passed on to the the Nigerian people. He dismissed the argument by the federal government that the increase in the price of refined Petroleum products is associated with increase in the price of crude oil in the international market.
According to him, in the year 2014, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $100 and a litre of pms was sold for N65 in Nigeria. But the government is arguing that today the price of a barrel of crude oil is on the increase about $85 therefore of a necessity the price of pms must go up from the current N162 per litre.
He insisted that that NLC is against deregulation based on importation of Petroleum products. He maintained that for government to deregulate the price of pms the nation’s Refineries must be functional. ” Nigeria is an oil producing country and a member of OPEC. Other OPEC member nations refine their own petroleum products that are consumed in their countries. Nigeria is the only country where the petroleum products that are consumed in Nigeria are Imported. There is no where in the world that energy is not subsized” he pointed out.
He noted that NLC had kicked against the provision in the PIA where deregulation was mentioned. He explained that before the passage of the PIB; Labour had always insisted that deregulation must not be with the importation of Petroleum products. On the figure being mention by government on the volume of pms consumed in Nigeria he said that Nigeria cannot be consuming up to 120 million of pms daily. The figure before now was about 30 to 38 million of litres daily. He wonder how such figure had skyrocted in a short period of time.
He insisted that increase in the price of pms will hurt Nigerians beyond measure. According to him the ripple effect will be so devastating on the people as prices of other products particularly the price of food stuff will skyrocket as it has bearing on the transport system that uses pms.
