Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Thursday, rejected the new pump price of fuel announced by the Petroleum Products Price Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, and demanded immediate reversal, contending that the new price, amid COVID-19 pandemic, will kill businesses and worsen poverty level across the country.
NLC, in a statement by its President, Ayuba Wabba, claimed that the hike in the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit commonly called ‘petrol’ from N121 to N143.80 at a time Nigerians and businesses were struggling to cope with the negative consequences of COVID-19 pandemic, was the height of insensitivity by the government.
The statement argued that “PPPRA contradicted itself when it said that the latest price increase described as an “advisory” was meant to regulate a product that government claims had been de-regulated.
“That this new hike in the pump price of petrol was announced without the approval of the board of the PPPRA and the oversight ministry speaks volume of the arbitrariness and public contempt in the operations of PPPRA. We find this deeply disturbing. “It is also very embarrassing that the PPPRA boss, while trying to defend the indefensible, appeared to be out of sorts and ready to clutch at any available straws to sell his ice block merchandise to Eskimos.
“Apart from contradicting himself that PPPRA is still trying to regulate a deregulated product through ‘advisories’, the PPPRA went on to exert more nails on the coffin of his polemics when he argued that PPPRA was just like the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, and the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM, that would always act to protect the public interest. “That was how far the niceties went. The rest of the statement by the PPPRA boss was about how PPPRA plans to protect investors and increase their profit.”
