The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, has urged the Federal Government to unearth alleged cabals behind the unending fuel scarcity across the country.
President of ASCSN, Dr. Tommy Okon, who spoke yesterday during the Association's National Executive Council, NEC, meeting in Lagos, lamented the perennial fuel scarcity and long queues at filling stations are holding the economy down and compounding the suffering, hardship, and difficulties confronting Nigerians, especially workers.
Dr. Okon maintained that the one-week ultimatum given on May Day by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and its Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, counterpart on the reversal of the recent hike in electricity tariff still persists, saying labour is very serious about the ultimatum.
According to Dr Okon who is a Deputy President of TUC, "Organised Labour is very disturbed because of government's assurances that the Port Harcourt Refinery would begin operations in April and also when Dangote Refinery begins operation, all the challenges on landing cost of petrol to marketers would stop and the issue of subsidy would be a thing of the past, have not materialized. This is May, why are we still going back and forth? This is a policy somersault and this is bad The government or the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, should come out clean and tell us the truth. Are they still paying subsidies? Let it come out from their (government) mouth and let us know rather than speculating.
"If organised labour had protested and stood against the removal of fuel subsidy, they would have said labour has caused the fuel scarcity, otherwise there would not have been long queues at filling stations. Now the government said it is a logistics problem and the marketers are talking of huge dollars debt unpaid to them. Who is fooling who? President Bola Tinubu assured us that when fuel subsidy is removed, there will be an interplay of market forces but now we are even returning to square one. We call on the government to unearth the cabals behind the unending fuel scarcity."
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On the proposed N615,000 national minimum wage by labour, the ASCSN's President insisted that it is a realistic demand, challenging those opposing Labour's demand to make public their proposals, saying "We have set the template, we have done the variables, and we have presented our demand. That is our position. There are exemptions and when the time comes we will see. What we want is for the government to do the needful and remember that by the time we came up with the figure, there was no hike in electricity tariff."
