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AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has reinstated its stand on the removal of fuel subsidy, saying when it is removed, the money generated would be used for key infrastructures for the betterment of the country.
This is because the association said it would not support the privatisation of local refineries, but rather encourage the fixing of the refineries in the country.
The National President of PENGASSAN, Festus Osifo who spoke at the National Executive Council (NEC) of the association in Abuja yesterday said the stand of the association has not changed since its NEC meeting in Calabar, where it bought the idea.
According to him, the subsidy money would fix a lot of sectors, such as health, education and power, when properly utilised by the government, even as he said some palliatives have to be fashioned out by the government to better the lives of the people.
He said; “The National Executive Council meeting in Calabar, May 2016 Precisely, deliberated on the issue of subsidy and believe that the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry will grow much more if that sector is deregulated.
“And in the last seven years, we have maintained that stand, we have maintained a stand not minding some of the side effects.
“But again, if you look at the subsidy times, we tend to be trying to hold on to something why we are losing in some other areas.
“If you look at the cost of living, it has gone up drastically by over times three times four in the last two, three years. If you look at the driver, you will see why the cost of living has actually moved to where it is today. It is actually because our exchange rate has plummeted.
“Before now, the exchange rate used to be somewhere around 100 lost to $1, but today, it’s close to around 800, it moved beyond it to 800 sometime last year.
“So now, why are these exchange rates moving up? Because we are not earning foreign exchange?
“Most of the money we ought to have earned as a country we are using them and the oil and gas is where we earn about 80 to 90% of our foreign exchange, but at the end of the day, this money is not being used in a subsidy,
“So, that has shrinking our dollar reserve. That is actually why our exchange rate has plummeted. So now, if we address this problem, if we look at domestic refining, and we also look at the issues of boarding or subsidy.
“If we address this, the Nigerian government will earn more money from the crude oil sales and that money will go into CBN, and it will shore up our reserves and it will support a lot of other imports and the pressure on dollars. And so, when this happens, our naira will appreciate it.
“So, again when we look at one sector, we find a way on how it connects with the overall Nigeria economy.
“So we believe that if this is done, it has a way of having a positive impact on our foreign exchange which will, in turn, have an impact on the citizens”,
Continuing, he said; “Secondly, our position has also been that there are some basic things that government must do as well. Our push has led today to the rehabilitation going, most especially in the Port Harcourt refinery.
“Then we also want to encourage the government, If you remove subsidy today, where are you going to put the money? for example removing subsidy can number one, solve the ASUU problem permanently.
“So ASUU will never go strike again. Who are the people that are attending public institutions? They are the children of the downtrodden. The politician’s kids are all abroad. So if we can solve that problem permanently, that is a good one.
“We can also use it in addressing healthcare. That is another good one. But again, because of the trust deficit over the years, it is all, it is always a problem.
“That is why Labour and government will sit down to define the processes to the palliative that will be put in place for the Nigeria masses so that we will feel this impact when it’s finally done.
“If you take some of this money and you use them to build hospitals, those hospitals will be everlasting. If you use this money for quality roads, the roads will be there. If you use this money to address all the fundamentals that are affecting Nigeria, like the ASUU problem when you go to the universities and you address the infrastructural challenges that we have in our universities today. There will be there for a very long while.
“So we are not saying that government should just buy one or two buses and after one or two years, the buses fade away, that is not what we are saying. But put this money into infrastructure that Nigerians can reckon with. The things we can measure, not the ones that you tell us that you are transferring conditional money transfer that may or you cannot verify”,
On privatisation, the national president said; “our take on it has been very clear. Government should fix the refinery. We do not support the sales of any of these refineries.
“We will fight it with every arsenal at our disposal. We don’t support these things. Fix the refinery, once you fix it the government can now transit and become a minority shareholder.
“For example, in the case of NLNG, NLNG Model is working today because the Nigerian government owned 49% of the shares and the private sector owns about 51% of the shares.
“So we can replicate the NLNG model because it has worked in the past, it is working today. So we can bring that to ensure that the refineries are working in the future”,
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