WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-09-08 Time: 16:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Mohammed Shosanya
Lagos – With the Nigeria Labour Congress declaration of total war against the planned removal of subsidy on oil by the federal government, there is fear that the development would plunge the nation’s petroleum sector into another crisis.
This is coming on the heels of the delay in the signing of the Petroleum Industry Bill presently before the National Assembly into law.President Goodluck Jonathan had last week expressed his worries over the country’s low participation in oil industry, while foreign oil companies are currently doing less of exploration work in the sector. This is contributing to the depletion of the nation’s oil reserve which targets 40 billion barrels by the end of this year.
The second quarter report of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) indicates that foreign oil companies depleted the nation’s resources by 3 percent.
This is not the first time the labour organization would cry out against the move by the government to tamper with the subsidy, which according to the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has hit N2 trillion in the last four years.
The NLC had two months ago took the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to the cleaners over his call for the removal of the oil subsidy and described his argument that some cliques in the industry have been siphoning the subsidy as baseless.
The current reaction of the NLC was sequel to the Minister of Finance Olusegun Aganga’s announcement that the government had set between December 2010 and January 2011 for the removal of fuel subsidy.
Aganga said that the planned removal of fuel subsidy was informed by the massive investment in a mass transit system meant to cushion the negative effects that the removal would cause.
But the NLC through its Head, Information and Public Relations, Onah Iduh, said the pronouncement of the minister was in contrast with the ongoing dialogue between it and government.
He explained that the position of the minister is completely against the subsisting dialogue between labour and government, which began a few weeks after Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as President and Commander-in-Chief when he set up a committee to look at Labour’s critical areas of concern.
He said nothing meaningful has come out of the discussion up to now, adding that “we see the minister’s comment therefore as pre-emptive of the dialogue and invariably a mark of government’s insincerity on the policies of subsidy and deregulation.”
According to the NLC, its opposition to both deregulation and fuel subsidy removal is principal because these policies do not take into cognisance the social factors that directly affect the standard of living of the masses.
“We wish to state that the NLC still remains opposed to the twin policies of subsidy withdrawal and deregulation principally because the arguments usually advanced by government do not take into consideration the broader social and economic ramifications especially the masses who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of subsidy.”
The labour organization faulted the declaration by the minister that the provision of mass transit was enough to cushion the multi-dimensional effects of the removal and posited that the planned removal clearly demonstrated government’s social irresponsibility and shirking of its responsibility of catering for the welfare of its citizenry as stated in relevant sections of the nation’s constitution.
It said that the implications of the removal of subsidy go far beyond the question of availability of mass transit system or whatever amount of money government would be saving, adding that it is essentially the question of government living up to its basic responsibility of providing governance in the best interest of the masses.
“In the oil sector, which is the hub of our economy, this will be symbolised in functional refineries, effectively coordinated distribution network and other variables all geared towards serving national interests”, the labour union said.
According to NLC, what is required is the will, commitment and courage on the part of the government to frontally confront the numerous challenges in the oil sector, the most serious of which is corruption.
It stressed that it was purely for this reason that the NLC had maintained that it would not accept increase in the prices of petroleum products in the name of subsidy withdrawal or deregulation.
The NLC, while calling on the President to jettison any advice that would not serve the interest of the Nigerian people, said if the fuel subsidy was executed, it might be unable to guarantee industrial peace in the country.
It also admonished government to engage all the critical stakeholders before implementing the policy, saying anything contrary to this might add to the suffering of Nigerians.
“We wish to therefore restate our call on President Goodluck Jonathan to ignore any advice to remove subsidy on petroleum products without exhaustive engagement with relevant stakeholders particularly labour since we believe that this is not the time to put additional burden on already overburdened Nigerians. For this reason, Nigeria Labour Congress will not be able to guarantee industrial peace in the country if government goes ahead to unilaterally withdraw subsidies on fuel products as the Minister of Finance stated”, it said.
Stakeholders in the industry have also view government timeline for the removal of the subsidy as inappropriate and lacking human face.
They particularly said the state of the nation’s refineries is nothing to write home about.
“The current government has not addressed critical factors that are necessary to kick-start deregulation and withdrawal of subsidy. The concern now is 2011 election. Look at the refineries, they are down, although the government has always told us that they are in perfect condition”, an energy economist Adebayo Francis said.
President General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Peter Esiele said current import reception facilities in the country were never designed for the level of product imports that are needed to meet well over 90 percent of the country’s petroleum product demand.
According to him, the facilities are overwhelmed and the delays in vessel product discharge at the import jetties result in heavy demurrage payments, adding that the shallowness of the Jetties means that products have to be removed from big vessels by small ones to the depots.
From the benefits of hindsight,it is evident that neither government nor the people of Nigeria are really set for deregulation and withdrawal of oil subsidy.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 7 September 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009080371.html?viewall=1