As petrol price hike heightens uncertainty over PIB

 
OrderPaperToday – Recently the Federal Government announced a new petrol price regime, the highest which the country had seen in all time: a ceiling of N145 per liter. While the irrepressible Nigerian citizenry may be settling into the new reality of a higher cost of living, the grim gambit is that government has failed or neglected to define what exactly the new petroleum downstream policy is. Is it petrol subsidy removal? Is it deregulation (partial or complete)? Or is it mere price modulation that submits to the unending blackmail of petroleum product importers? These questions arise from the seemingly conflicting statements of administration officials: while Vice President Yemi Osibanjo affirms that the federal government is yet to remove subsidy in spite of the hike; Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, latches loosely to the words subsidy and deregulation interchangeably. Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Lawal Babachir, is in another corner lambasting Kachikwu for wrong use of words so-called.

This apparent confusion is what happens when government fails to have a holistic policy to govern the oil and gas industry. And this is why it is most regrettable that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) that is supposed to drive whatever this regime is called and the revitalization of the sector is yet lost in the midst of the confusion. This places the National Assembly in sharp focus. What are the federal legislators up to? A PIB bedeviled by delays, still-birth and recycling since the 6^th Assembly ought to be a guiding light in these days of petrol discourse and failed strikes.

Recall that the pump price hike had sparked wide protestations across the country even as the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) immediately gave the government an ultimatum to revert back to the pump price of N87 or have the nation shut down by the Unions. Unfortunately, the highly compromised and factionalized Congress, with different fronts pursuing different interests could not summon a total strike as many of the confederated unions pulled out.

Although suspended last Sunday, the strike as many had described it, was a failed one and its suspension was just for the Ayuba Wabba-led faction of the NLC to save face.

Indeed, while many are relieved by the failure of the strike the underlying danger is that the unions and indeed Nigerians may never have a united voice to speak against or protest any policy of government no matter how ill.

Even though the ‘subsidy removal’ was long overdue as government could not be paying a few wealthy Nigerians money to guarantee their importation of products while poor farmers in many village are left to fend for themselves, the right steps should have been taken. A legally-binding new regulatory environment which the PIB would provide should have heralded the price hike under whatever guise.

Now, a new fuel regime is nigh, the cost of everything has gone higher; the National Assembly and Governors of the 36 States have backed the new move; and government and labour are back on the negotiation table to most likely negotiate wage increase among others. But wouldn’t that only affect the federal workers who constitute a small fraction of the nation’s workforce? What happens to workers in state where some unscrupulous governors are looking for the slightest opportunity to stop paying the currently unsustainable N18,000 national Minimum Wage?

Big question is where are the guidelines for operating the new template? Or is it just an arbitrary template subject to endless hikes whenever marketers and importers complain about inability to access foreign exchange? Where is the PIB that could have answered all these questions? What is the National Assembly doing about it? One year gone from a four-years tenure, both the Executive and Legislature are unable to get anything concrete going as far as this critical bill is concerned.

Does Nigeria have to plunge further into this directionless darkness only to realize close to the end of a bottomless pit that the nation has been accelerating in the wrong direction?

Like Sen. Ben Bruce said, government is making the wrong arguments. While the Senator wants a Mass Transport Policy, the important thing is that there is no better time to pass the PIB than now.

When the National Assembly resumed and both chambers went into an executive session to discuss the new hike in price of petrol, they came out smiling and backing the policy.

All they said was that government should begin the implementation of palliatives. What palliatives? Would it (whatever it is) get to the common man in the village or are we going to see a new Sure-P regime? One would have expected the National Assembly to be working assiduously to pass the PIB to set guidelines for operation in the industry. How long would this bill remain in the National Assembly? Like the constitutional amendment, is it just another money wasting venture for the legislators?