Worried by the continuous fuel shortages in the country, the Petroleum and Natural Gas senior Staff Association of Nigeria ( PENGASSAN ) has asked the federal government to concentrate on fixing the problems associating with the the fuel hike than pointing accusing fingers on others.
The President of PENGASSAN Festus osifo who spoke to newsmen at the Special Delegate Conference of the association in Abuja, said the government has the responsibility of tackling the nation’s fuel crisis and should not blame the disturbing trend on anybody.
According to the president, “the persistent shortages of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in the country has become a source of pain to the Nigerian people as the current shortages are been perpetuated by players in the downstream sector in other to hike the price far above the government approved threshold. 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.
“We demand that the various security agencies, especially the men of Nigerian Customs and Immigration charged with manning the nation’s borders act professionally and in dictates to their oaths of allegiances to stop high rate of smuggling of the products across the West African countries. The various deports and other storage facilities especially those owned and operated by the NNPC should be upgraded and made accessible to all operators to lift the product. Consequently, we demand an immediate end to the avoidable, unnecessary, crippling and paininducing 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. We are ready and willing to collaborate with the Federal Government and assist in all ways possible to overcome the country’s present challenges. But we caution it not to take the Nigerian people for granted as it seems to be manifestly doing on various crucial national issues”,.
Speaking further, he said, “Nigeria has suffered two recessions in five years under this present administration with the workers and the poor masses left to bear the brunt, and the economy remains in a bad shape on all fronts. Based on the above summations, we view the recent clamour by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission to increase the salaries and allowances of top public office holders as highly insensitive and an afront to the struggling masses and the working class.
“The only group entitled to pay rise are the down trodden Nigeria workers and at best Nigeria Judges. The President, his Vice, Governors, Lawmakers and other political appointees does 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. 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.
“Upon these challenges of poverty and wants among the citizenry; former governors and their deputies in some states receives huge pensions for life, excluding cars and houses at regular intervals for an official that served for a maximum of eight years, this makes no sense. More so, some past state governors that draw such gargantuan pension from their poor states are current senators in the National Assembly who also earn salaries and gigantic allowances from federal pulse”,.
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PENGSSAN therefore demanded for the stoppage of pension to all political office holders and kill any idea of further increasing their salaries until they justify such increment by first putting the economy in a proper shape and lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
On the growing poverty, the president said, “We are worried at the ever increasing poverty status of Nigerians despite the abundance of human and natural resources. A report by the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Bureau of Statistics on the results of the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) Survey released in November 2022, shows that poverty in all ramifications has gotten to an alltime worst.
“The survey which was a collaborative effort between the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), etc. was conducted between November 2021 and February 2022, and provides multidimensional poverty estimates at senatorial district level. Highlights of the 2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) survey reveal that: · 63% of persons living within Nigeria (133 million people) are multidimensional poor. · Multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72% of people are poor, compared to the people living in the urban areas.
“Two-thirds (67.5%) of children (0–17) are multidimensional poor Our position on this disturbing trends is that the federal government should be courageous to invite economic experts from other divides than the ruling political party to workout modalities on how to effectively deploy the country’s vast tapped and untapped natural and human resources for the overall benefits of the masses.
“Also, management of the Nation’s critical sectors should henceforth not be politicized”,.
On debt services, the president, said “Muhammadu Buhari recently presented the 2023 fiscal budget to the joint session of the National Assembly which is the eighth and final budget presented by him over his two tenures as the president and commander-in-chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“President Buhari proposed an annual budget of N20.51 trillion for the year 2023, a 19.8 percent increase when compared to the N17.13 trillion approved for 2022 including the supplementary budget. Remarkably, the budget stood at N92,209 on a per capita basis. If we further dissect these figures what it means is that for every month of the year, a token of N7,684 is budgeted for each citizen and the amount is significantly lower than the N30,000 minimum wage. This is even more worrisome when we subject it to the huge fluctuation in dollars and other foreign currencies.
“However, from an economic expert’s perspective, a fiscal budget should aim to achieve human capital development in education, health, security, power generation and sustenance. We call on the government to heed economic and financial experts warning that if they continue their reckless borrowing, debt servicing will 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.
“The NASS we believe can still knock prudence into the 2023 Appropriation Bill, prune wastages, look deeply into service wide vote and the recurrent expenditure, and then move all cash saved to increase capital spending”,.
