Fuel price: Federal Government appeals to workers’ unions to shelve planned strike.

The Federal Government has appealed to workers’ unions to shelve their proposed strike over the new petrol price of N145 per litre.

The Government said the new price was introduced for the country to survive as government could no longer afford the foreign exchange spent by the NNPC to import petrol.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who made the plea at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, said the nation's earnings had dropped to about 550 million dollars because of the fall in the price of crude oil, and government needed about that amount to import fuel.

Mohammed said this was not the time for any action that would further worsen the economy, but the situation was dire, not just in Nigeria but elsewhere around the world.

He gave the instance of United Arab Emirates, which had announced that fuel prices would be deregulated with effect from August one, adding that in response to fiscal pressure caused by the fall in crude oil prices, OPEC’s top oil producer Saudi Arabia had announced a plan to raise fuel prices.

The minister assured that the suffering brought about by the new price regime would be for a very short time, saying it was only going to be a temporary hardship because with the discipline of government and political will, things would be put in shape.

According to him, the moment they liberalise and open the market up, there will be competition and the price will come down and there will be petrol glot.

The minister noted that government was working hard to ensure that the refineries which are already working, worked to optimum capacity.

In addition, he said government had opened bids inviting people to invest in modular refineries to be located close to existing major ones for access to crude.

He said the modular refineries were expected to refine 650,000 barrels of crude a day while the refinery under construction by the business mogul, Aliko Dangote, would also refine 750,000 barrels of crude daily.

Mohammed said with all these in place, Nigeria would become a net exporter of fuel and other petroleum products by 2019.

He said in order to cushion the immediate effects of the new price regime, government had put in place a number of palliatives which were captured in the 2016 budget.

The minister said government carried along critical stakeholders before announcing the new price regime.

He said the issue was discussed at a meeting a week ago and was attended by representatives of the Nigerian Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, PENGASSAN, and NUPENG.

Mohammed said the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, Deputy President of Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, Governors and Ministers were also present at the meeting.