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Less than 24 hours after President Bola Tinubu insisted that subsidy removal was not immediate, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), yesterday, hiked the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) over N500 per litre.
However, price-fixing seems to have taken the backdrop of the subsidy removal, reflecting the monopolistic state of the market.
While NNPC has been the sole importer and administrator of the government subsidy, most marketers, especially the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) as of press time had no knowledge of the exact ex-depot price of the product.
Expectedly, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on the Federal Government to immediately instruct NNPC to withdraw what it called a vexatious fuel-pricing template to allow the free flow of discussions by the parties.
In a swift reaction, NLC President, Joe Ajaero, described NNPC’s latest move as unfortunate. He accused the company of ignoring ongoing meetings on the issues. He said the release of the template might not allow Congress to continue consultations with stakeholders if nothing was done to withdraw it.
According to him, it was clear that the government is trying to scuttle the process. He said the move was an ambush and runs against the spirit and principles of social dialogue, which remained the best platform available for the resolution of all issues arising from the downstream sector.
He said the government could not in one breath be talking about deregulation and at the same time fixing the prices of petroleum products.
Indeed, the meeting last night between labour leaders and Permanent Secretaries of key ministries appeared to have ended in a deadlock. The Bola Tinubu administration, which was sworn in on Monday is yet to form its cabinet.
The meeting to prevent negative reaction to the upward review of petrol price last night ended in a stalemate. The Labour leaders asked the government to return to the status quo