Daily Trust

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) yesterday called for a meeting with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to trash out the controversy surrounding government’s desire to increase electricity tariff and deregulate the downstream oil sector.    

NLC was reacting to calls by Sanusi for government to increase electricity tariff by 200 percent and also his claims that deregulation was inevitable. The union expressed its concerns over the comments which it says portrays the CBN governor as an “arrowhead of government’s anti-people policies.”

A press statement signed by the union’s Acting Head of Information, Onah Iduh, said “The CBN governor had on Tuesday, July 27, 2010, while receiving the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr Austin Oniwon, stated that deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry was inevitable. The following day (July 28, 2010), Sanusi was again quoted to have called for an immediate increase by 200 per cent in electricity tariff.
“Earlier in June, Sanusi had called on the Federal Government to remove subsidies on petroleum products because he felt the beneficiaries of subsidy are members of an oil cabal and not the people for whom it was meant.”

Onah said, “the union sees these recent comments by Mallam Sanusi as highly misleading and totally anti-people in the face of excruciating mass poverty in the land. In the meantime, the leadership of Congress wishes to meet with Mallam Sanusi so as to engage in discussions and explore avenues that might bring about greater comprehension of the real conditions of working people which we believe will fruitfully serve the CBN in its economic and fiscal policy formulations.”