FG, labour disagree on fuel subsidy •Presidency’s statistics faulty -Labour •Present your own -FG

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday night tasked the organised labour to come up and present its counter statistics
and analysis of government’s document on the planned fuel subsidy removal for discussions.
President Jonathan threw the challenge following attack from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) that the presentation from the presidency on the issue of fuel subsidy was very faulty and nothing but a repetition of the same argument put forward by former military rulers, Ibrahim Babangida; Sani Abacha and former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
The presidency, on Tuesday, had invited the Labour movement comprising the NLC and TUC to an interactive session.
The session was addressed by President Jonathan; Vice-President Namadi Sambo; the Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who doubles as the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, and the Petroleum Minister, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke.
According to a joint statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by the NLC and TUC, President Jonathan frankly told labour leaders that they were invited not for labour to take a decision either in favour or against fuel subsidy removal but to present the government’s position and encourage mutually beneficial discussions.
“He invited labour to present its counter statistics and analysis of the government’s documents for discussions at a future date. Labour accepted this,” the statement, signed by Acting NLC General Secretary, Comrade Owei Lakemfa and the TUC Secretary General, Comrade John Kolawole,  and entitled “Outcome of presidency - labour interactive session,” said.
The presidency, however, claimed that the actual cost of petrol supply was N139 per litre and admitted that all Nigerians benefitted from fuel subsidy but claimed that the rich benefit more, while it also claimed that the current N65 per litre price was so cheap that it encouraged smuggling of PMS across the country’s borders.
It presented a document: “Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE),” under which it listed, amongst other projects, the construction or completion of eight major roads and two bridges, provision of health care for three million pregnant women, six railway projects, youth employment, mass transit, 19 irrigation projects, rural and urban water supply.
In its response, the labour movement noted that out of the projected N1.134 trillion to be saved from the subsidy removal, the local government allocation is N202.23 billion, states N411.03 billion and the Federal Government N478.49 billion and concluded that even if the Federal Government alone was to spend the entire N1.134 trillion, it could not execute even a fifth of the projects it had listed.

Meanwhile, against mounting speculations on the impending withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products, the Federal Government on Wednesday insisted that no date had yet been fixed for the commencement of the policy as consultation on the issue was continuing.
The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who briefed State House correspondents after the last meeting for the year of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) which was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, warned that the economy of the country would be jeopardised in the next few years unless government implemented the planned removal of subsidy.
According to him, “no take off date has been announced. The truth of the matter is our country is in a very difficult economic situation, to continue to run Nigeria with one third of the budget set to subsidize one product is absolutely a path to a greater difficulty for the economy.
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