The Trade Union Congress (TUC) has vowed to resist selling the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries to firms that do not have the required competence to manage the national assets.
The President of TUC, Festus Osifo, who stated this at the ongoing International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, said though the Port Harcourt refinery is slated to come on stream later this year, the trade centre will prevent the government from selling any of the four refineries to investors that cannot turn it around.
He said: “For us, we are working with the Federal Government to ensure that the refineries come on stream, but we will not support the sale of any of the refineries to investors that cannot turn them around. We will prevent what happened in the power sector where power assets were sold to cronies. Our job is to protect the work of our members and selling the refineries to people that do not have the competence needed will lead to massive job loss.”
The Centre also warned the Federal Government to beware of speculators who may truncate the liberalisation of the foreign exchange market.
It said it will resist selling off the nation’s refineries to friends and cronies of government officials.
Osifo, who lauded President Bola Tinubu for taking the bold step, said the President must not allow currency speculators to determine the exchange rates.
“We have been advocating against the issue of multiple exchange rates because it’s killing our economy. In the last eight years, it is a single item that has affected our monetary and fiscal policy as a country. It has affected us on all ends,” he said.
Osifo noted that for the policy to succeed, there must be some fundamentals that must be put in place to checkmate speculators from having a field day.
He, however, cautioned against free floating of the naira when Nigeria has a weak production base.
“No country in the world that allows its currency to be left anyhow. Government must not allow speculators to determine what the exchange rate will be. If government does have rein over it speculators will take advantage of it,” he said.
Osifo lamented that Nigeria would not have had to face currency instability if Nigeria can refine its crude oil locally for domestic consumption as well as supply the West African market.
He said the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has been advocating for the adoption of the LNG model in the running of the refineries long term.
“Our advocacy is that the refineries should work and government should go the way of the NLNG, where the government will have fewer shares of 49 per cent and the investors 51 per cent instead of selling it to their friends and cronies,” he said.
The labour leader, who said there is a plan by the Organised labour to visit the refineries, vowed that TUC would not allow the federal government to dispose of refineries just anyhow.
“We are going to resist the government selling refineries to their friends and cronies but will support the NLNG model. It is the way to go,” he explained.
Guardian
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