By Simon Ebegbulem
BENIN — THE President of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers, Comrade Peter Akpatason, has called on the Federal Government to approach the controversial deregulation of the petroleum industry with caution.

He pointed out that there were some basics that must be put in place by govern-ment before deregulating the petroleum industry, warning that it would inflict more hardship on Nigerians should the Federal Govern-ment go ahead with the programme without prepa-ring Nigerians for it.

Akpatason, who spoke to newsmen in Benin City weekend, at an award ceremony conferred on him by publishers of Call Magazine, said government must ensure that the four refineries were working at full capacity, adding that there should be a conscious effort to encourage private indivi-duals to build refineries before talking about deregu-lation.

“A deregulation that is not properly done will throw the nation into some difficulties because it will result in price increase which will create inflationary trend that will erode the already very low purchasing power of the common man,” he said.

“We have seen stagnation in some cases and total lack of growth, so we, therefore, support the on going transformation in the industry…

“We believe that if there is proper deregulation, as the word entails, it will not cause the kind of problem we are saying. Our concern is not about deregulating actually, but how to ensure that workers and consumers are not visited with unnecessary hardship, that is our concern.”

He warned that the cartel currently controlling the subsidy programme must not be allowed to exist in a fully deregulated sector.

“We believe the deregulation should be managed because there are some cartels that are manipulating even the subsidy scheme now.

“If there is deregulation and those guys are still there, if the cartels are still there, then the situation will be worse for us”.

Insisting that NUPENG would not accept a deregulation that is based on import parity, Comrade Akpatason stated that “If they are basing the whole thing on imported product, then we will have problem with that”.

He admonished the federal government to address the issue of the huge amount in foreign currency being paid as demurrage by dredging the waterways and creating more points for receiving petroleum products.

This, according to him, will lead to a reduction in costs.