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Failed subsidy promises: NLC blast Jonathan, ask government to revert petrol price to N65



The stage appeared set for another round of showdown between President Goodluck Jonathan and labour unions on the issue of fuel subsidy with labour on Tuesday asking the Federal Government to revert the pump price of petrol to N65 per litre.

The Nigeria Labour Congress and the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria said the Jonathan administration had no option other than to reverse the price from its present N97 to the old N65 per litre since the President had said he was rethinking the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment programme.

Jonathan on Monday reportedly told chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party at their  58th National Executive Committee meeting in Abuja that implementation of the palliatives to cushion the effects of subsidy removal were no longer feasible.

The President said the palliatives had been based on the 100 per cent removal of subsidy on local consumption of fuel.
“This (SURE) is developed with the expectation that we were going to completely deregulate the Downstream sector of the oil industry, the 100 per cent removal of subsidy… we will still come up with a document based on what we get,” he told the PDP members and ordered them to withdraw the circulated SURE document.

The SURE programme had been hurriedly designed in January to douse the tension generated by the sudden removal of subsidy and consequent jump in the pump price of petrol.

The Senate has said it is backing the action of the President. Leader of the Senate, Victor Ndoma-Egba, said Jonathan made the plans based on zero-subsidy arrangement and for which the 2012 budget was prepared.

“The President said he wanted to remove subsidy, Nigerians said they don’t want it removed. Now that he was not able to realise his plan, where will he get the money to carry out that policy,” Ndoma-Egba said.
He, however, stated that the President would still need to work with the savings made from the partial removal of subsidy.

“The President will have to look at the proceeds from partial deregulation and work with what is saved. That is the reason why the document earlier produced should be revised to reflect the current realities,” he said.
Apart from the NLC and the ASCN, the House of Representatives also on Tuesday took a swipe at the President and said it was vindicated concerning its pessimism over the government palliatives.

The Acting General Secretary of the NLC, Mr. Owei Lakemfa, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents on Tuesday said  the Federal Government  had no option but to revert the fuel pump price from the current N97 to the pre-2012 pump price of fuel.

He said that a recent advertisement in a national daily in which the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, claimed that the Federal Government realised N15b allocation from the proposed subsidy savings supported the claim that the Federal Government was making some money from the regime change in the pump price of fuel and that the funds realised from the fuel price increase should be adequately utilised to execute projects.

According to Lakemfa, the Federal Government is only trying to prepare the minds of Nigerians against expecting results from the increase in the pump price of petrol in the country by announcing the withdrawal of the programme.
He urged the government to fulfil its promise to use the proceeds of fuel price increase to construct roads, build a second Niger bridge, and other promises contained in the SURE document.

He said that the Nigerian citizenry was seriously interested in what the Federal Government could do with the proceeds from the increase in the pump price of petroleum products.
He called on the Federal Government to ensure that the Ministries of Petroleum and Finance were cleansed based on the serious discoveries made at the Subsidy Probe by the House of Representatives.

 “Right from the onset, organised labour believed that the Federal Government was not sincere with this programme but the government claimed that we were going to get results in six months. What government is saying now is that we should not expect results,” the NLC scribe said.
Also, the House of Representatives said that it was not surprised that the President withdrew its promised fuel subsidy removal palliatives.

The House noted that the development vindicated its opposition to the SURE programme, particularly the “hurried manner” the executive introduced the document without consulting the National Assembly.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Zakari Mohammed, explained that the legislature had consistently held the view that Nigerians needed to be consulted on the programme.
He added, “We have been vindicated because we had initially opposed the hurried manner the SURE document was put together.

“We were saying that the funds for this programme needed to be properly appropriated by the National Assembly and more so that we needed to have the details of the programme.”
Mohammed, however, commended Jonathan for realising that something went wrong and retracing his steps.
The Minority Leader of the House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, who shared the same view, told a reliable source in Abuja that the palliatives were a “dummy right from the start.”

He argued that the President was merely attempting to “pull the wool” over the faces of  Nigerians by promising palliatives that were theirs by right.

Gbajabiamila stated, “Under Section 17 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), government is mandated to provide the same services it has promised as palliatives.
“The issues of health, transport and all that; these are the fundamental duties that government owes the citizenry.

“You cannot give me what rightly belongs to me in the guise of palliatives, while taking away the subsidy that I ought to enjoy.
“So, I am not surprised that they have decided to withdraw it; it was a dummy that I never ever bought.”
   Criticising the President, the National Publicity Secretary of the CPC, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, said the administration was not committed to responsible governance.

  “All along, as a party,  we knew the idea of SURE was a knee-jerk response to the people’s protest and not a well thought-out intervention to stymie the dire impoverishment of the people,” Fashakin said.
President, Campaign for Democracy,  Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, said it was evident from the outset that  Jonathan was not committed to the implementation of the SURE programme.

 “They never meant it (SURE). It was just propaganda to make people swallow poison. Corruption still persists so how can anyone trust the regime to implement SURE. Cosmetic palliatives can never cushion any effect,” she said.
 The Secretary-General of ASCSN and founding Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, Mr. Solomon Onaghinon, in an interview with one of our correspondents said, “There is social crisis in Nigeria.”

 He said, “There were no palliatives in the first place; I have always said that those palliatives do not make sense because government said they would be paying salaries on the 20th of every month but have they paid? There is no palliative.
“For those people who really listened carefully, they would have known that there was no palliative. If the President said the palliatives are no longer feasible, let him bring the fuel price back to N65 per litre.”
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15 comments

  1. GEJ, better think well, because this is our time to stone you out of office

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  2. I look and laugh....Did NLC, TUC and the likes that betrayed the masses who were very ready for a change in Nigeria ever think that the 'palliatives' were real. A government that is very irresponsive to the plight of the masses cant be fully trusted. GEJ should wait till the Petroleum sector probe panel by the Reps finishes and the Anti Graft agencies carry out their investigations before telling Nigerians anything...Infact, I see this as a way of making Nigerians chase shadows. Check corruption in your Govt GEJ and Nigerians will be smiling again. Dont take Nigerians for granted.

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  3. Person wey dey chop no fit open mouth dey yarn o! he must to chop or yarn.
    After una don collect gbemu, u kon comot dey yarn nonesense.

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  4. why NLC or trade union will not react in the manner they are reacting now because the SURE committee they are member has been disbanded.

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  5. Dapo Afolabi. twitter@ dapolabiFebruary 22, 2012 at 10:13 AM

    With all due respect, why is NLC making noise now? with all the negotiations in January, was there ever an agreement? Before they called off the strike, what were they thinking? If you blame GEJ`s government, you should take a cursory look at yourselves. It`s a case of the blind leading the blind. It is very funny, to imagine anyone was actually expecting something from the UNSURE SURE programme. Nigerians, please wake up and smell the coffee, only God will deliver us from PDP led government.

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  6. In the first place, why would the goverment come out and promise SURE when it is not sure that the SURE programme would surely work

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  7. Nigerian solution is no other thing than true Federalism,were everybody should manage his/her resources and not all this Sure issue that is unrealisable programme

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  8. I want Biafra please!

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  9. Let me ask a simple question.If someone prepares a budget for a project for a certain amount and eventually you realised half of the budgeted amount,would the project be accomplished? If Mr President made a SURE programme which is dependent on 100% deregulation on the downstream by subsidy removal,now that he could achieve almost half of the plan by #97 pump price.We should also expect that the President should
    cuts down his programmes in the SURE programme.We also know that those SURE programmes are the legitimate responsibilities of the govt,but the difference in the SURE programme is its been accelerated and bringing them to work simultaneously.

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  10. ALL are birds of the same feather.even NLC and GEJ are not reliable infact GEJ has nothing to render to this nation than to compounding this Nation problems.Is not PDP?sharing the money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  11. Federal govt is dump. Nlc and tuc are full of bullshit. All are sac of fraud. God will remove all of you one day. Continue stealing.

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  12. Im waiting to hear what Peter Esele have to say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  13. Only time will say the TRUTH about the true motives of government policies both its actions and inactions.
    Nigerians will have to take responsibilities for governmnent inactions.....or ACT NOW.

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  14. If the planned SURE is not sure again, then the govt should reverse the fuel price. The whole nation has been been deceiveed already. God will soon eliminate all the enemies of this nation.

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  15. This goodluck guy is nothing but badluck to Nigerians looting continua...............poverty ascetera

    ReplyDelete

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