The
President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the state governors will
discuss the issue of fuel pricing Thursday.
The
Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, disclosed this Sunday
night after a bipartite meeting of the Federal Government and the organised
labour at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Briefing
journalists on their resolutions, Ngige said the labour had investigated the
report of the Technical Committee on Premium Motor Spirit Pricing Framework as
agreed at the last meeting and made their submissions alongside the Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation.
The
minister said, “The labour side saw that they were making some points and like
I said, it is work in progress. Governors are going to discuss this on
Thursday.
“They have discussed this at the National
Economic Council and so, everybody is involved because we find ourselves in
dire straits. There is no money for subsidy.
“The
NNPC has explained: What they are doing is import- dependent. Deregulation is
import-dependent but they are doing bulk purchasing. So, they can get
discounts.
“They
are also using foreign exchange that is discounted for them. They are not
buying from the parallel market. So, all these things will be put in basket and
a price will emerge from it.”
Ngige
maintained that the Federal Government has concluded discussions with the
organised labour on the fuel pricing.
On the
electricity tariff, the minister disclosed that the meeting adopted the report
of its Ad-hoc Technical Committee on Electricity Tariffs, made some adjustments
and transformed the committee into an implementation committee, to implement
all the recommendations made, including mass metering.
“You
will start seeing members of the committee with the Minister of Power, going
around now and making sure that the DISCOS put meters for people because there
are reports that they don’t want to be distributing meters and that they want
to be doing bulk billing and estimated billings. So, we don’t want that.
“There is
also a resolution as regards gas companies reducing gas pricing for gas sold to
power companies, GENCOS and the rest of them so that the price of electricity
per unit will go down and the consumers will benefit from it. We have given the
marching orders for them to do so,” he stated.
The
minister added, “Some paper work has to be done and once that is done, price of
electricity will go down and once it goes down, the consumers will benefit.”
He
said the committee also recommended that those forcefully migrated by
distribution companies from lower paying bands C and D to upper bands A and B
should petition the National Electricity Regulatory Commission.
“They
will be brought back and the DISCO will be sanctioned,” he said.
Ngige,
however, announced that the social dialogue between the Federal Government and
organised labour has been adjourned till April as the two standing committees
are still working.
The
Secretary to the Federal Government, Boss Mustafa congratulated the organised
labour for their sacrifices at this time of economic difficulty, which has been
rewarded with Nigeria’s exit from recession in the third quarter of 2020.
The
President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba and his TUC counterpart, Quadri Olaleye
led the organised labour.
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