Nigeria: Oil Workers Sound Warning on Downstream Deregulation
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Thursday, 06 October 2011 |
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The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) have voted to rejected a planned pump price increase in petrol, seen as a stepping stone to full deregulation of the downstream sector. The Union also warned that Nigerians would resist attempts to impoverish them through subsidy removal.
PENGASSAN leaders said that minimum conditions before deregulation could take place, agreed between the Federal Government and organised labour groups, had not yet been met. They urged the Government to focus on meeting these conditions rather than removing fuel subsidies.
The warning was issued through a communiqué at the end of a four-day Strategic Planning Synergy workshop in Ogun State. Leaders added that the Government’s assumption that private investment would flourish under deregulation was faulty if the conditions “The Workshop noted the Federal Government’s subtle campaign for a full deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. It, however, reiterated a standing NUPENGASSAN, a fusion of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, resolution that certain irreducible minimums must be put in place before a total deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector will be acceptable to PENGASSAN and the Nigerian masses,” read the communiqué.
The ‘minimum conditions’ before implementing deregulation demanded by PENGASSAN include socio-economic relief measures to lessen the impact of deregulation, measures to stimulate local production, more affordable mass transit and effective maintenance and repair of roads.
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