The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Thursday, cautioned the Federal Government against heeding the advice of the World Bank to increase the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, commonly called petrol, to N750/litre.
The NLC’s Head of Information, Benson Upah, emphasized in an interview with The PUNCH that any further hike in the price of petrol would result in anarchy in the country.
He called on the government to reject the World Bank’s proposal that petrol should be sold at about N750/litre, as opposed to the current rate of between N620 and N650/litre in most locations across the country.
Oil marketers explained that the cost of PMS should be around N1,000/litre if the government were not subsidizing the product.
However, on Thursday, the government denied the claims of marketers and the World Bank regarding the reintroduction of subsidy on petrol in Nigeria.
The World Bank, on Wednesday, urged the Federal Government to stop the subsidy payment on petrol and raise the cost of the product to N750/litre.
The World Bank’s lead economist for Nigeria, Alex Sienaert, alleged the continuous payment of petrol subsidy by the government in Abuja during his presentation of the Nigeria Development Update, December 2023 Edition.
Reacting to the World Bank’s statement, the labour movement declared that a further hike in the price of fuel would be an automatic invitation to anarchy.
The NLC’s Head of Information, Upah, described the World Bank as a predatory institution that does not care about the welfare of Nigerians, stressing that the initial increment in the pump price of PMS had caused enough problems in Nigeria.
He stated, “The World Bank is so hypocritical it fails to see the nexus between price and capacity. The minimum wage in Nigeria for a privileged few is N30,000. The same minimum wage in the United States where the law is enforced is N1.5m. In light of this, if the government knows what is good for it, it should ignore the World Bank but must remain committed to fighting inherent corruption in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. It must also cut down the high cost of governance.”
