The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, has urged the Federal Government to initiate the production of products from the Port Harcourt refinery by the end of Q1 2024.
The TUC President, Festus Osifo, made this known in Abuja on Monday during a press briefing.
The press briefing is coming barely 24 hours before the start of a nationwide protest by the Nigeria Labour Congress over the high cost of living.
“The congress visited the Port Harcourt Refinery about a week ago to inspect the state of the rehabilitation of both the old and new refineries.
“We are demanding that crude production from the old Port Harcourt refinery must commence before the end of first quarter of 2024.
“We further demand that the rehabilitation of the new Port Harcourt refinery, Warri refinery and Kaduna refinery must be expedited as we shall be closely monitoring progress and work completion as scheduled in the work breakdown structure,” he said.
He emphasised that the Port Harcourt refinery must start production before the end of March.
“No matter how little, let’s start from somewhere,” he stated.
The congress also urged the Federal Government to start importing food within two weeks to address the increasing food prices nationwide.
The Federal Government had recently expressed confidence in Nigeria’s ability to produce enough food to sustain itself and potentially become a food exporter.
President Bola Tinubu also said he would not set up a board to regulate the prices of food commodities in the country.
“What I will not do is to set a price control board. I will not also approve the importation of food,” Tinubu said.
Osifo has, however, advised the government to import food to address the economic hardship ravaging the country.
“Nigerians must live to see tomorrow before we can understand how beautiful a government policy is. The national pride of striving to achieve food sufficiency locally should be temporarily relaxed.
“Governments at all levels should immediately purchase sufficient quantities of food items from different parts of the world and share them with vulnerable Nigerians.
“Importing food abroad at this point will assist to reduce the hyper-inflation of food in the country. FG should allow importation of food items for Nigerians consumption within the next two weeks,” Osifo stated.
