The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) is decrying the increasing cost of food and cooking gas in the country.
President, Festus Osifo, and General Secretary of PENGASSAN, Lumumba Okugbawa, raised the alarm in a jointly signed statement, lamenting that the nation was degenerating into a land plagued with hunger.,‘’ as a result of “poverty induced policies”, among other causes.
According to PENGASSAN, farmers in Benue, Plateau, Katsina, Nasarawa, and Taraba States can no longer readily access their farmlands due to security threats.
In calling for corrective measures, the statement read in part: “We strongly advocate that Government must develop a strong mechanism in tracking how its macroeconomic policies, be it fiscal or monetary, affect the disposable income of individuals and households in the country.”
On the cost of Liquified Natural Gas (LPG), commonly referred to as cooking gas, the association complained that the price of refilling a 12.5kg-cylinder has risen by almost 100 percent and called for an immediate abolishment of the increased Value Added Tax on gas importation, prevent further slide of the Naira, and the provision of some form of verifiable palliatives for the lower-class citizens, as remedial actions.
In the same statement, the association asked the government to encourage its workers rather than making it mandatory to take the COVID-19 vaccine, making the directive look “unbecoming, draconian and against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that the Government.”
It added that the deregulation of the downstream oil sector must be based on domestic refining and not import-dependent.
– Channels –
