The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria,TUC,has insisted that the presidency is responsible for persistent hikes in the price of fuel in the country.
Its President,Comrade Festus Osifo,accused the presidency of being too much in a haste to exit subsidy without understudying the dynamics in the Nigerian economy.
At a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, suggested that the only panacea to address price violatility in the energy sector was to create a special forex pool, where Dangote refinery can easily access to ensure the availability of the product to Nigerians.
He hinged the prevailing crisis in the sector and the economic hardships in the country on the removal of subsidy on petrol and the devaluation of the naira which has made it one of the weakest currency in the world.
He said though fuel subsidy has been eliminated as declared by President Bola Tinubu after his swearing-in on May 29, 2023,the high exchange rate brought it back.
According to him,three things which are key requirements for energy security in the country are accessibility, availability and affordability
He said: “So for the very first one, accessibility, as Dangote refinery is today. We want government through the regulator of the industry, NMDPRA to give licenses to all marketers to source for product from Dangote refinery, if he has the volume to give to us in Nigeria today, the 35 million liters minimum per day that we consume so that let all marketers be able to access this product, bring this product to their respective stations that cut across the nook and cranny of Nigeria. That is number one regarding accessibility,
“Then the second one, that touches on availability. First,we need to know what is the production capacity of Dangote refinery today. We understand that the refinery capacity is 650,000 barrels per day. We understand that our full production that could give us maybe something in excess of 50 million liters.
“So even if today, Dangote refinery is producing 35 million liters, do we have the capacity to be able to evacuate 35 million liters per day from that refinery? So that is the question we call on the regulator to provide us with that answer. We must know. Do we have the quantity in the country that will be able to resolve the issues of availability?
“We want government and through the regulator to be able to speed up all the necessary support and approvals to Dangote refinery, to be able to get to that level where we could have excess of 40 million liters per day.
“It is key, because if for example, the production today, from Dangote refinery, let’s assume is 50 million liters, it is not sufficient. So why efforts are being made to ramp up production from Dangote refinery, what we are demanding is that we should look for every other means as we are ramping up production, the difference, we should source for that difference and bring it in for a while, until Dangote is able to get to that level where the production will be sufficient to go across the nook and crannies of Nigeria. So for us, that is key, because that will sufficiently address the issues that borders on availability.
“Then,the last one is the issue bothering on affordability, what we have demanded before and it is still the same thing that we are demanding today. If government today makes a special intervention in that sector by giving FX to Dangote refinery at 1200 Naira to a $1 PMS price today is going to crash much more below 700 Naira per liter of PMS.
“So the demand is that government should create a special foreign exchange scheme for that purpose. There is no government in the world that doesn’t intervene in its critical sector. And the critical sector in this case is the energy sector.
“We shouldn’t leave it to the vibration and the gyrations that we are having regarding our naira. So when that special intervention is done, the PMs price will even go below. It is going to go below where it was moved from. It was moved from about 800 Naira, plus about when that intervention is done, it’s going to go about 700 naira.
“That is our demand to government three things. One, affordability. So that we must be able to buy this product. We want the price of the product to go even below where it was before, not just reverse, even where it was before, but it will go below, if we attend clearly to the issues that are bothering on foreign exchange.
“Some of you may ask why foreign again.Government said they are selling crude to Dangote refinery with our local currency now, but crude is an international product, so it’s actually priced in USD, but all you now do is that you have to convert the value from the USD to local currency.
“If government today makes a special intervention in that sector by giving Fx to Dangote Refinery at 1,200 Naira to a dollar, PMS price is going to crash much more below 700 Naira per litre of PMS.
“So the demand is that government should create a special Fx scheme for that purpose. There is no government in the world that doesn’t intervene in its critical sector, and the critical sector in this case is the energy sector.
“Government can intervene in that sector by what we have opined earlier, that will even help Dangote Refinery to even employ more Nigerians and make its operations much more efficient and that will crash the PMS price to where it was as of June last year”.