The Precision, Electrical and Related Equipment Senior Staff Association, PERESSA, has decried the lingering scarcity of fuel in many parts of Nigeria even as the price of the product continues to rise unpredictably.
The association said it was unfortunate that while some motorists and other consumers struggled to get fuel at less than N200 after queuing endlessly at filling stations, others bought fuel at about N300 as being sold by many filling stations across the country – far above the official price.
In a statement signed by its national president, Comrade Rufus Olusesan and general secretary, Comrade Dele Ojo, PERESSA said the fuel scarcity had a serious debilitating impact on all sectors of the economy and had been causing great suffering for the Nigerian working people.
It described petrol as a primary source of energy for both commercial and domestic endeavors in the country.
It said its members were finding it hard to report to work on a daily basis as a result of the scarcity, high prices of PMS and increased transport cost.
It added that some workers now trek to work on a daily basis, a situation which it descrbed as intolerable.
It therefore called for a reversal of the hike in the prices of petrol.
“As a union, we hereby demand immediate reversal of the hiked price of PMS to the official price and firm measures to halt hoarding and guarantee the availability of petroleum products at affordable prices for the sake of Nigerian workers and the poor who can hardly afford the increase in transport fares due to the scarcity and high price of PMS,” said the association.
It stated further: “It has come to our attention that President Buhari has set up a committee to look at the issues causing the scarcity. As far as we are concerned, this is a step that is too little and too late. We do not need a committee to know where the problem lies. Much before now, organized labour as well as civil society have dissected the problems of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector and put forward recommendations which have been largely ignored by successive government in the country.
“For us, the explanation linking the lingering fuel crisis to logistics and foreign exchange problems – as contained in the statement of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) and as explained by some government officials – is untenable, and we maintain that the blame for this crisis must be placed on the reckless handing over of the oil and gas sector to local and multinational profiteers and at the doorstep of the successive capitalist governments that continued to stick to pro-rich energy policies that have converted Nigeria’s endowment in oil and gas resource to a curse.
“We note that the domination of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector by private profiteers, just as in the privatization of power and other sectors, have only led to one crisis after the other, as against the false promise of improved quality and access to petrol and other associated products during the privatization process. Rather than take a cue from past experiences and invest in the resuscitation of the nation’s public refineries, the present government is hinging its hope of resolving the crisis on the completion of a refinery owned by Aliko Dangote – a die-hard capitalist whose sole purpose of building it is to amass as much profit as possible. Such false hope is baseless!”
PERESSA said to guarantee availability of petroleum products at affordable prices, “we call on the government to end the domination of the oil and gas sector by private interests whose unbridled profit-motive, corruption and government inefficiency are the reasons for the perennial crisis of fuel scarcity and hike in prices. In addition, we demand the public ownership of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector under workers and consumers democratic control and management.”
