Nigeria may lose N150bn daily to proposed oil workers’ strike ―LCCI

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has claimed that Nigeria may lose about N150 billion daily if the proposed strike by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) is not averted.

According to the Director-General of LCCI, Mr Muda Yusuf, in a chat with Tribune Online on Monday in Lagos, said: “it would not be a good development for an economy that was just emerging from recession to be confronted with another strike in oil and gas sector.”

Yusuf urged the Federal Government to engage the unions and propose a credible payment plan to settle the arrears.

“It would paralyse the chain of logistics in the economy as economic activities are driven largely by road transportation, both for commuting and freight.

“It will impact on revenue as the upstream sector would be affected as well. It would impact the power sector which is largely powered by gas.

“It is regrettable that government has over the years got itself entangled in a problem which should not have arisen in the first place.

“We have consistently argued that the government should completely decouple itself from the business of importation, refining, transportation and retailing of petroleum products.

“This arrangement has created considerable distortions and stagnated private investment in the downstream sector because these are enterprises that the private sector is best suited to manage,” he said.

He emphasised that government has no business fixing prices and subsidising the players.

“In spite of the monumental problem the economy had during the subsidy regime, the government has not taken urgent steps to put an end to price fixing for Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol.

“The economy cannot sustain this arrangement. The current debt of N800 billion is 151 percent of the total capital allocation for the Federal Ministry of Works, Power, and Housing in the 2017 budget.

“It is 1,568 percent of the capital allocation to health; it is 305 percent of the capital allocation to Federal Ministry of Transportation; and 1,600 percent of the capital allocation to education.

“This raises vital questions about the optimality and efficiency of resource allocation and utilisation by the government,” he said.

He called for speedy passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), adding that it will help to normalise the oil and gas sector.