PENGASSAN Demands End to Fuel Scarcity, Price Hike

*Wants pension payment to ex-governors stopped

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has demanded an immediate end to what it described as the avoidable and unnecessary crippling fuel shortages and unapproved hike in the price of the product in the country.
While expressing worry over the incessant fuel shortages and price hike, the association said the persistent shortages of premium motor spirit (PMS), also known as petrol in the country had become a source of pain to the Nigerian people.

In an address presented by the president of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo, at the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the association held in Abuja, he alleged that the current shortages were being perpetuated by players in the downstream sector in other to hike the price far above the government approved threshold.

He urged various security agencies, especially the men of Nigeria Customs and Immigration charged with manning the nation’s borders to act professionally and in line with their oaths of allegiances to stop high rate of smuggling of the products across the West African countries.
“Consequently, we demand an immediate end to the avoidable, unnecessary, crippling and pain inducing fuel shortages and unapproved price hike in the country. No excuse is good enough to cripple the country. If there are challenges, they should be fixed; we have a government in power to fix challenges not to make excuses,” he said.

Osifoh assured that PENGASSAN was ready and willing to collaborate with the federal government and to assist in all ways possible to overcome the country’s present challenges.
Expressing disgust at the current situation of fuel supply glitches, Osifoh said: “It is an added problem when non-state actors begin to arrogate to themselves the power to determine the price of a liter of fuel far above the rate pegged by government in the current subsidy regime.

“It is more disturbing that the government is equally demonstrating high level of culpability in the unwholesome situation by its silence and unwillingness to frontally and publicly address the harrowing experiences of Nigerians in the current situation, because no concerned and responsive government will bury its head in the sands like the proverbial Ostrich while the citizens are being brutally exploited.”

PENGASSAN also described the move by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission to increase the salaries and allowances of top public office holders as highly insensitive and an affront to the struggling masses and the working class.
According to PENGASSAN, the only group entitled to pay rise were the downtrodden Nigerian workers and at best Nigerian judges.

It said: “The president, his vice, governors, lawmakers and other political appointees do not require pay rise. The Economist of London already lists Nigeria’s lawmakers as the highest paid in the world. It is therefore provocative to consider increasing their pay packages without acceptable justification.

“We are also saddened by the continuous payment of pensions to ex-governors and their deputies even in states nearing insolvency. More painful is the fact that many states are not paying the N30,000 national monthly minimum wage, whose implementation commenced in 2019.”

Osifoh said the situation was also unbecoming when pensioners in some states have not been paid for 75 months or more with backlogs of unpaid salaries while others deduct workers’ pension contributions and fail to remit to the Pension Fund Administrator which by law is a criminal offence.

He said PENGASSAN was worried with the ever increasing poverty status of Nigerians despite the abundance of human and natural resources.  
On the country’s high debt profile, Osifoh urged the federal government to heed economic and financial experts’ warning that it should not continue with reckless borrowing, adding that, “debt servicing may gulp over 100 per cent of the federal government’s revenue in about a year or two unless urgent steps are taken to expand the revenue base of the nation; as this will curb the rising imbalance of the debt service-to-revenue ratio.”  

PENGASSAN expressed optimism that with the preparations for the 2023 general election, including the distribution of voter’s card, there would be credible polls.
The association urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the security agencies and other key actors in the electoral process to use the window to reassure Nigerians that 2023 general elections would be credible, free and fair.