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 6th 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?
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