The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has commended labour leaders for suspending their planned protest and strike over hike in electricity tariff and fuel pump price.
He assured them that NNPC would “diligently” implement the agreement reached between the labour leaders and Federal Government.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) had threatened to embark on industrial action over the Federal Government’s refusal to reverse the hike in electricity tariff and fuel pump price on Monday.
READ ALSO: Labour suspends strike as FG halts electricity hike for 2 weeks
But after a marathon meeting with the FG on Sunday, the organised labour suspended its planned nationwide industrial action for two weeks.
Among the agreements reached the meeting was that NNPC would expedite the rehabilitation of the nation’s four refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna and to achieve 50 per cent completion for Port Harcourt by December 2021, while timelines and delivery for Warri and Kaduna will be established by the inclusive Steering Committee.
On the issue of electricity tariff reforms, the parties agreed to set up a Technical Committee comprising Ministries, Departments, Agencies, NLC and TUC, which will work for a duration of two weeks effective from Monday, 28 September.
“We reached an accord to suspend the planned strike action, great responsibility for both government and Labour, all serving the common good, the beneficial challenge for NNPC, we will follow through diligently,” Kyari tweeted after the meeting.
He added, “Being a former Union leader, I understand the difficulties of Labour leadership when faced with choices between stark realities and legitimate follower expectations. The leadership chose the pursuit of common good and posterity will vindicate us all for standing with our country.
“NLC and TUC demonstrated absolute faith in our country and showed an understanding of the inevitability of PMS deregulation and jointly charted a way forward to secure local refining sufficiency through greater stakeholder inclusiveness and transparency. We will follow through diligently.”
The removal of the subsidy had led to an increase in electricity tariff from about N30.23 to about N62.33 per kwh, while the price of petrol was increased from about N145 to about N161 per litre.
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