The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday called for the reconstitution of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) board to set a proper template for petroleum price.

NLC President Ayuba Wabba made the call in Lagos at a stakeholders meeting organised by the congress on fuel subsidy and petrol pricing.

Wabba said that the reconstitution of the board was long overdue and that by law, the NLC was a strategic stakeholder, which should contribute to decision making in the area of template for petrol price fixing.

“According to the law, we (NLC) are a member of the PPPRA board and it is that board that is supposed to look at the templates and even fix the price.

“But for sometime now, deliberately, government has refused to constitute that board and a lot of things have been going wrong; so people have taken the law into their hands

“Government said that subsidy on kerosene has been removed even without any consultation; what is the current template that is being used by PPPRA to fix the price?”

He said that although government had the responsibility through the PPPRA law to fix prices as was done in other parts of the world, he said that the price was being controlled due to its security importance and could not be left in the hands of market forces.

The NLC boss said that it was time to assist the government in checking its policies, alleging that some of the policies were being imposed by those he described as ‘powerful nations’' in their interest.

“We should take our destiny into our hands. We should also be able to assist government to come up with a proper policy because we need to strengthen their hands.

“Government, on its own, might not be able to check the policies because those policies are superimposed by the powerful nations in their interest and may inflict more hardship on Nigerians.”

Wabba said that the stakeholders meeting was aimed at evolving measures on how to intervene in petroleum price regulation as crude oil price continued to slide.

He said that some countries now depended on renewable energy to drive vehicles and other machinery and advised the government to refine crude oil locally, to be able to attend to the needs of its economy.

He urged the participants to share information and look at perspectives that could be used to advocate for the cause of workers for the interest of Nigerians.

In his remark, Mr Peters Adeyemi, the NLC Deputy President, also urged participants to generate new strategy that would help address national issues, especially petroleum pricing.

“The time to fight is now but we need to change our strategy and method,” Adeyemi said while welcoming the stakeholders. (NAN)

•Photo shows NLC President Wabba.