Group flays NGF for canvassing increase in fuel price

The Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), has condemned the recent recommendation of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) that the price of petrol should be increased to between N380 and N408.5.

In a statement issued by the Executive Director of the group, Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, it described the recommendation, which it described as insensitive disposition, as a way of further impoverishing the people.

“FENRAD condemns the recent call for upward review of the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise known as fuel. This development is not only ill advised, but also ill timed.

“The recent call for upward review of the current price template from between ₦162 and ₦165 to ₦380 and ₦408.5 as advanced by the Nigerian Governors Forum, at a time when the purchasing power of most Nigerians had declined in a post-pandemic economy shows how unsympathetic the subnational governments are, especially in an economy with 33 per cent unemployment and inflation of 18.7 per cent,” it said.

The group, therefore, advised that there should have been a phased negotiation on that, lamenting that the governors could not implement N30, 000 minimum wage, only to turn around to ask for increase in the PMS:

“If they had the people in mind, the NGF should have known that a negotiated subsidy regime, which should be phased and one which does not weigh heavily on the starving poor would have been the best at a time like this.

“It was not surprising that the same governors, most of who do not pay pension to retirees, wanted to share in a federal allocation from the national pension fund even when they could not enforce, let alone sustain the ₦30,000 minimum wage in their states,” it added.