Written by Soji-Eze Fagbemi, Leon Usigbe and Okey Muogbo, Abuja Thursday, 22 December 2011
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday night tasked the organised labour to come up and present its counter statistics
and analysis of government’s document on the planned fuel subsidy removal for discussions.
President Jonathan threw the challenge following attack from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that the presentation from the presidency on the issue of fuel subsidy was very faulty and nothing but a repetition of the same argument put forward by former military rulers, Ibrahim Babangida; Sani Abacha and former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
The presidency, on Tuesday, had invited the Labour movement comprising the NLC and TUC to an interactive session.
The session was addressed by President Jonathan; Vice-President Namadi Sambo; the Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who doubles as the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, and the Petroleum Minister, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke.
According to a joint statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by the NLC and TUC, President Jonathan frankly told labour leaders that they were invited not for labour to take a decision either in favour or against fuel subsidy removal but to present the government’s position and encourage mutually beneficial discussions.
“He invited labour to present its counter statistics and analysis of the government’s documents for discussions at a future date. Labour accepted this,” the statement, signed by Acting NLC General Secretary, Comrade Owei Lakemfa and the TUC Secretary General, Comrade John Kolawole, and entitled “Outcome of presidency – labour interactive session,” said.
The presidency, however, claimed that the actual cost of petrol supply was N139 per litre and admitted that all Nigerians benefitted from fuel subsidy but claimed that the rich benefit more, while it also claimed that the current N65 per litre price was so cheap that it encouraged smuggling of PMS across the country’s borders.
It presented a document: “Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE),” under which it listed, amongst other projects, the construction or completion of eight major roads and two bridges, provision of health care for three million pregnant women, six railway projects, youth employment, mass transit, 19 irrigation projects, rural and urban water supply.
In its response, the labour movement noted that out of the projected N1.134 trillion to be saved from the subsidy removal, the local government allocation is N202.23 billion, states N411.03 billion and the Federal Government N478.49 billion and concluded that even if the Federal Government alone was to spend the entire N1.134 trillion, it could not execute even a fifth of the projects it had listed.
Labour also noted that the presidency’s presentation was simply a repetition of the presentations made by the Babangida and Abacha regimes and the Obasanjo administration, and that none of those promises was kept.
It insisted that if non-oil-producing nations could refine petroleum products, a big oil- producing country like Nigeria had no excuse to be import-dependent, adding that government had basic responsibilities to the populace and not make externally driven proscriptions like the IMF did on SAP under the Babangida regime and that its opposition to fuel subsidy removal was driven by its belief that the people must come first in all policies.
It pointed out that none of the presentations by the presidency presented facts on the impact of oil subsidy removal on the populace, particularly the informal economy where most Nigerians earn a living.
Labour also pointed out that some of the statistics presented by the Minister of Finance were juggled to reach false conclusions.
While government elaborated on how the savings from subsidy removal would be spent on social infrastructure, labour responded to say that government had shown consistently that it could not be trusted, considering how agreements and promises were reneged upon in recent years.
Specifically, labour complained that the Federal Government, despite signing an agreement with it and issuing an enabling circular that the N18,000 minimum wage would be implemented for federal public servants from August 2011, implementation was yet to commence.
It stated that failure or refusal of government to implement agreements reached was one of the reasons Nigerians did not fully trust government.
Responding to the issue of the national minimum wage, President Jonathan said he was shocked to find out two weeks ago that the new wage had not been implemented by the Federal Government.
He blamed it on bureaucracy and that he was not informed about any difficulty in paying the new wage. He said he had since directed his ministers and officials to commence immediate payment of the new wage.
The NLC and TUC stated that they expected that the presidency would not remove fuel subsidy until it had concluded the consultations with all stakeholders, including labour.
Meanwhile, against mounting speculations on the impending withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products, the Federal Government on Wednesday insisted that no date had yet been fixed for the commencement of the policy as consultation on the issue was continuing.
The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who briefed State House correspondents after the last meeting for the year of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) which was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, warned that the economy of the country would be jeopardised in the next few years unless government implemented the planned removal of subsidy.
According to him, “no take off date has been announced. The truth of the matter is our country is in a very difficult economic situation, to continue to run Nigeria with one third of the budget set to subsidize one product is absolutely a path to a greater difficulty for the economy.
“We have continued to talk about this because every sector we opened up has produced results. People who are emotionally talking about it are not actually addressing what we are saying.”
Maku particularly appealed to the media to assist the government to explain the benefits of the subsidy removal to the people, pointing out that sectors of the country which had been deregulated in the past, such as broadcasting, aviation, banking and telecommunications had proved to be a huge success.
He said: “Let’s take the media. Before now, it was only Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) until the government deregulated broadcasting in the country. Before, you could not set up a private radio station in this country or a television station. When a government deregulated it, what do we have today? We have private television stations that are now competing with the NTA and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). If the government decided to control broadcasting in the country, all of you would have been out of a job.”
The minister also announced that FEC considered and ratified the president’s anticipatory approval for award of contract for the execution of the outstanding works for gas supply to the Niger Delta Power Corporation (NDPC), Alaoji, N3, 815,217,323 in favour of Messrs OLISERV Limited with a completion period of seven months.
FEC also approved the payment of $8.804 million payment of subscription for 62,000 shares in African Re-insurance Company which it said had provided a lot of jobs for Nigerians.
Meanwhile, Jonathan has received a complete set of steel band donated to the Nigerian government by the President of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr George Maxwell.
The president, who took a break from the FEC meeting to receive the equipment presented by the High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago to Nigeria, Mr Nyahuma Obika, thanked President Maxwell and his people for the good gesture, saying that it would consolidate the cultural, economic and historic ties between both countries.
Obika said: “It is our hope that the steel band will be adopted throughout Nigeria, particularly in the schools as one of your special instruments. The versatility of this steel band is that it is the only approved musical instrument invented in the 20th century and is known in many parts of the world.’’
Pro-subsidy removal rally held in Abuja
Those opposed to the withdrawal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government must have been jolted by a massive rally held on Wednesday across the city of Abuja in support of the removal.
Organised by a group called the Friends of National Transformation Agenda (FRONTA), the rally participants went through major streets across the Federal Capital, causing serious traffic crisis along the affected streets.
Spokesman of the group, Mr Victor Chibudom, said FRONTA was out to show to the whole world that the planned removal of subsidy was popular among Nigerians, insisting that the current subsidy regime was no longer realistic and that it was resulting in a huge unsustainable loss with resultant inefficiencies, leakages and corruption.
