•TUC President, Comrade Festus Osifo
The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has urged the federal government to deploy part of the excess revenue generated from higher-than-benchmarked crude oil prices to subsidise crude supplied to local refineries.
TUC President, Comrade Festus Osifo gave the advice today, while briefing the media on State of the Nation, in Abuja.
He particularly asked the government to work with Dangote Refinery, noting that it will serve as a short-term intervention to reduce the pump price of petroleum products across the country, reports Daily Independent.
Osifo warned that the price of Premium Motor Spirit may climb to about N2,000 per litre, if urgent measures were not taken to cushion the impact of rising global crude prices and the depreciating naira.
He lamented that Nigerians were already experiencing severe hardship as the cost of petrol continued to surge across the country.
According to him, the rising price of fuel, which he linked partly to global tensions involving Iran, Israel and the United States, has pushed transportation and production costs upward, worsening the economic burden on workers.
He said: “Today, comrades, we are seeing that the cost of petrol is edging towards N2,000 per litre depending on the part of the country that you are. Nigerian workers are already passing through excruciating pain as we speak.”
Osifo added that the increase in petrol price was already triggering a ripple effect across the economy.
“The same way it is affecting transportation, it is also affecting manufacturing. The cost of diesel has also gone northward, meaning that the cost of production has increased. When production costs rise, the final price of goods on the shelves will also skyrocket,” he said.
Osifo warned that if the trend continues, the country’s declining inflation rate could reverse.
“If this continues unchecked, the inflation that we are currently celebrating as going downwards will reverse and start moving up again,” he stated.
