By Charles Nwaoguji
Nigerian manufacturers are now jittery and in battle mood against the Federal Government over news of an impending raise in pump price of petroleum products. Their concern is that a further increase would further hurt their operation.
Manufacturers, who spoke to Daily Sun on the issue strongly condemned the callous, provocative, entirely insensitive and anti-poor fuel policies of the Buhari administration. Rejecting the fuel price hike, the manufacturers described the government’s decision as a capitalist tool to further punish the poor.
According to them, deregulation has always punished the working class and the poor, “whose lives have been made miserable by the recent hike in electricity tariffs, arrears of unpaid salaries, lack of social security and welfare, commercialisation of education and healthcare, poor living conditions, job losses and unemployment.”
It insisted that deregulation is akin to privatisation, contending that both policies are “dictated by greed, profit-seeking and looting by the few rich cabals at the expense of the poor masses and working people.
According to the Managing Director of Danfield Nig. Limited, Prince Williams Nweke, the hard times confronting the populace are occasioned by dwindling revenues, high inflation rate, unemployment and general fall in the standard of living of many Nigerians.
“The policy that is being pursued is not one that can grant you stability in price. When they raised the price to N145, I said so; that with time, given an import-dependent regime, for such a policy, the value of the naira will be severely weakened,” he stated.
He urged the government to make massive public investments in industrialisation and infrastructure (energy, rail, road, and mass housing) in order to create millions of employment opportunities, adding that, “public investments in the energy sector (fuel and electricity) and other public sectors can be efficient if they are under the democratic control and management of committees of workers, consumers and representatives of the government.”
Nweke’s charter of demands included a new national minimum wage as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution, adequate funding of public education and healthcare, and respect for collective agreements reached with labour unions.
In the same vein, the Chairman of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Gas Users Group, Mr. Michael Ola Adebayo, said that it was time for government to review its policy on subsidy that led to the increase in the fuel pump price from N97 to N145 per litre last year.
“We do not think that at this time, given all that we have seen, that Nigerians can be subjected to another round of price increase now. That is why government needs to revisit and rethink its policy. Nigerians cannot take another round of price increase,” he said.
He faulted the policy of the fuel price hike, noting that it was bad and not ripe in an import-dependent regime as it was bound to further weaken the naira.
“The policy that is being pursued is not one that can grant you stability in price. When they raised the price to N145, we said so; that with time, given an import-dependent regime, for such a policy, the value of the Naira will be severely weakened,” he stated.
“The burden is on the government. That is where the issue of policy comes in. It is government policy that led to the price going to N145. Given the realities on the ground, now the government needs to revisit its own policy.”
Shortage of petroleum products
The government and its supporters always attribute the perennial shortage of fuel in the country to a so-called low price due to alleged government subsidy and the relatively higher price in neighbouring countries, which is allegedly responsible for fuel smuggling.
In reality, the Vice Chairman of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Group of MAN, Mr. Ikpong Umoh, said the cause of the fuel crisis is the collapse of the country’s refineries due to criminal negligence by the ruling elite. Successive administrations, he stated, including the Buhari government, have failed to resuscitate these refineries despite billions of naira allocated for the purpose, and the country has therefore relied on fuel importation. Importation of refined petroleum products has become a big business dominated by a mafia of government officials, capitalist businessmen and their friends.
Experience over the years has shown that the solution to fuel scarcity and other problems facing the oil industry lies not in privatisation and liberalisation but in massive investments and democratic management and control of its affairs by the working people.
The Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Muda Yusuff, said there cannot be any efficient management in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other public corporations so long as capitalist managements whose stock-in-trade is looting and nepotism run these corporations.
He noted that adequate and affordable fuel will remain a mirage so long as the capitalist system in which most of the wealth and resources of the country are owned and controlled by a few capitalist elements and multi-national corporation remains in place. So long as this oppressive and exploitative arrangement persists, it would be impossible for NNPC, NEPA, NITEL, water corporations, schools, hospitals and other social services to have sufficient resources to deliver quality service to the masses.
He stressed that not only must the working masses struggle against privatisation and liberalisation of oil industry and public utilities, this struggle must be linked to struggle to change society, adding that the system needs to be replaced by a democratic socialist system in which the commanding sectors of the economy such as the oil industry, banking, manufacturing, among others, are put into public ownership with democratic control and management of the economy and society by the working people. To achieve this historic goal, the working people must struggle to put in place a workers’ and poor farmers’ government on a socialist programme.
In addition, he asked the government to obey Section 16 of the 1999 Constitution on Economic Objectives. Part of the section spells out that the national economy should be controlled “in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen.”
It added that other parts of the section mandates the government to manage and operate major sectors of the economy as well as to ensure that the economic system was not operated in such manner as to permit the concentration of wealth, the means of production and exchange in the hands of a few individuals or of a group.