By Victor AhiumaYoung

The Precision, Electrical and Related Equipment Senior Staff Association, PERESSA, has called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently reverse the government’s policies of Petrol subsidy removal and the floating of the nation’s currency among others, termed anti-poor policies.

President of PERESSA, Rufus Olusesan, who spoke while delivering a solidarity message during  the National Union of Shop and Distributive Employees, NUSDE, delegates’ conference, said: “PERESSA unequivocally condemn the economic hardship the working masses are currently going through as a result of government anti-poor pro-rich policies of neo-liberal agenda viz a viz fuel subsidy removal, devaluation of our local currency, hike in electricity tariff occasioned by the introduction of categorisation of electricity consumption to Band A , B C and the rest.

“We note with dismay that the root of the current needless crisis is the inability of the successive capitalist governments over the past decades to ensure that we have the refining capacity to meet at least our domestic oil need and the desperate desire of the present government to fund its extravagance, just like its predecessors. Despite spending `a  whopping sum of N11.35 trillion on turn-around maintenance of four moribund refineries between 2010 and 2020 alone’, and despite the dwindling purchasing power of the working masses, the government has rather increased its wastefulness with a cost of governance that is now unsustainable.  

“In a country where government does not provide affordable decent housing, potable water and sanitation, quality and functional education and health care for the vast majority, it appears the only sign of government’s intervention in supporting the livelihood of working people is to unleash more hardship on the poor by introducing all forms of anti-people policies 

“To sustain fuel subsidy removal is to ensure that there is enough in government’s purse to fund the opulence and wasteful lifestyle in the face of declining oil revenue and the country’s deepening debt crises.

“It is disheartening to observe that while the minimum wage of N70,000 signed into law is yet to be implemented by Federal Government, state government and organised private sector , the minimum of N70,000 cannot even take workers home, as the economic realities as demonstrated by inflation which has risen to 32.6 has eroded the gains of the minimum wage. 

“We wish to call on the leadership of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, and NLC and all working people to join the fight against the high cost of petrol which is beyond the reach of the working people.