By Eberechi Obinagwam
The federal government has been asked to fulfil its pledge of fixing the Port Harcourt refinery as a way of ending fuel queues.
The government was also urged to speed up provision of CNG buses to relive workers in this hard times.
Comrade Tommy Okon, National President of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN) made this known during the National Executive Council Meeting (NEC) of the group on Monday.
Concerned about the recent queues in fuel stations, he said government assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery would start working by April this year but this is May, the country has not seen anything.
“They also assured us that when Dangote Refinery starts working all this queues and fuel issues will be in the past, still nothing is being done. So, why are we going back and front. The policy somersault, whose fault? That is why we say that NNPC should come out and tell us the truth if they are still paying subsidies rather than speculating,” he queried.
“Government is telling us that they have logistic problem hence the reason the fuel queues.
“We are very much concerned. We want government to put on a search light to NNPC to unravel those cabals in the sector because the masses are suffering,” he said.
The ASCSN president, Okon also urged government to live up to its expectations in ensuring that the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses are provided for workers because that will ease the transportation challenges workers face going to work than the three days work some governors proposed which the association frowned at based on conditions of employment.
He regretted that up to a year now, citizens have not seen the CNG buses.
On electricity tarrif hike, he urged government to reverse back, saying the hike is on a wrong timing and did not follow due process.
According to him, “They did not follow the provision of the Act. The Act made it very exclusively known that there should be stakeholders engagement before arriving at any increment and that was not done.”
On the issue of the new minimum wage of N615,000 proposed by the Labour union, he disclosed that the association is in support of it.
He expressed surprised over those saying the N615,000 is unrealistic: “I am surprised that people are saying that the N615,000 is unrealistic. I wonder whether those people are living in a different clime. If you look at housing now, there is no way you can get a one bedroom apartment for less than 300,000 and a worker of level 7, 8 will occupy 2 bedroom and you can’t get it now for nothing less than one million. And those people saying that forgets that the variable we are looking at is housing, education, health, food, clothes is aside, we also look at utilities, transportation. For a day. A worker does not spend nothing less than N3000. So, for anybody to have said that N615,000 is unrealistic is from another clime. We have done the variables and come out with a solutions. So, whoever said its unrealistic should come up with their solutions.
“For private sectors, there is what we call essentials, when the time comes we will do something on it because there is no way anyone can survive with N20,000 or 30,000. And when we arrived at the new wage, there was no increase in electricity tarrif,” he said.
Okon, noted that the association will not accept any minimum wage that will reduce its workers as he appealed to workers to remain steadfast and be committed to duties.
He also congratulated them for living up to standard even with the mixed feelings of the workers day.