Fuel price hike: FG meets with NLC, appoints PPPRA chair

President Buhari approved the appointment of Mohammed Lawan Buba as chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency. The PPPRA board has the statutory role of determining and fixing the prices of petroleum products and has not been constituted for over four years. The federal government set up a 16-man committee to negotiate with Nigerian Labour Congress on the increase in fuel price. The presidency said the committee was constituted to work out modalities on ways to resolve the issues raised by the organized labour.

 The committee is expected to submit its report within two weeks of their inauguration Alhaji Mohammed Lawan Buba, a former Director General of the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), has been appointed as chairman of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA). This was announced on Wednesday, May 25, by Engineer Babachir David Lawal, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation after a meeting between a federal government delegation and the organized labour.

Lawal said the appointment of Buba, a former group executive director of commercial & investment at Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) was approved by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The federal government also constituted a 16-man committee to address issues that necessitated the three-day strike embarked on by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) after the increase in the pump price of petrol. He said the meeting was called to review various issues which emanated from the increased fuel price, such as the minimum wage, implementation of the N500bn palliative in the 2016 budget and work out ways of resolving the issue on new pump price of petrol. “The committee is to discuss issues concerning the minimum wage, to advice on possible modalities of working out ways to arrive at a compromise. “Secondly, we have agreed that the 16-man committee will look at the issue of implementation and the allocation of resources on the half a trillion naira palliatives budgeted for by the Federal Government,” the SGF said. After three days, NLC suspended its indefinite strike to demand reversal of the pump price of petrol from N145 to N86.50 on Sunday, May 22.

Labour agreed to negotiate with the federal government on the review of minimum wage for workers, electricity tariff and constitution of the board of the PPMC among other issues. Responding to questions from newsmen, the NLC president, Comrade Ayuba Wabba who led other labour leaders to the meeting with the federal government, said it was successful.

Also speaking, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, said the 16-man committee was expected to work out the framework to constitute the committee for the minimum wage review which was a tripartite negotiation arrangement. “I chair the committee and we are waiting for the NLC to forward their nominees so that the committee can be inaugurated sometime next week,” he said. The removal of fuel subsidy and an increase in fuel price did not go down well with many Nigerians.