Business

DVLA staff to get payments worth £735 as government seeks to avoid strikes

Staff at the DVLA have been promised payments worth £735 as the government seeks to avoid strike action that risks exacerbating the backlog of tens of thousands of licences awaiting renewal.

It is understood the money will come in two payments, and has been offered as though unrelated to the fact the PCS trade union is currently balloting staff over renewed strike action.

DVLA employees have been locked in a bitter dispute with management for months over the safety of employees asked to work through the pandemic in the agency’s Swansea headquarters, where the PCS says there have been more than 900 Covid cases.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has been under pressure to resolve the dispute, with the availability of licences for HGV drivers regarded as critical to tackling the supply crunch that has seen retailers warn about empty shelves at Christmas.

The DVLA said last week that it had 54,000 HGV licences awaiting processing – many of them renewals.

An agreement on safety and the return to the workplace was reached in June with the management of the DVLA, but the PCS claims it was unpicked at the last minute.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, told the Guardian his members had been unfairly blamed for the DVLA’s failure to draw up plans to deal with the backlog of licences awaiting renewal.

“Deflecting on to the civil service or the union is an easy out for them,” he said, adding, “it is in crisis down there – and in any other organisation you would have expected them to want to find a resolution when there was one there.”

Turnout in the PCS’s last ballot of staff earlier this year was only just over the 50% legal threshold for triggering industrial action. If the PCS wins this time it plans to hold further stoppages over safety, despite the £735 payments.

Meanwhile more than a thousand driving examiners are to strike for two days next week at another Department for Transport agency, the DVSA, over workloads.

Examiners, about 200 of whom also test HGV drivers, have been asked to carry out eight tests a day instead of the current seven – something the PCS claims is unsafe and would lead to burnout. The roads minister, Charlotte Vere, visited the DVLA on Thursday and met staff.

Shapps recently announced that the army would be drafted in to boost the DVSA’s capacity to offer HGV tests but the organisation has not been given other additional resources to resolve the post-Covid backlog.

Serwotka said: “The two organisations have one common denominator, which is that they’re both in the Department for Transport – and the Department for Transport is really poorly managed and has a very poor record of industrial relations.”

He added that the prime minister’s rhetoric in his party conference speech about a high wage, high investment economy did not appear to apply to workers such as those in the DVLA and DVSA. “It seems that whoever else they say they have in mind, they certainly don’t mean people on the frontline of the pandemic,” he said.

A DVLA spokesperson said the payments to staff were “local recognition awards … [that] form part of a civil service-wide recognition scheme and are in no way linked to the industrial action”.

Business

CAC threatens to shut down PoS operators as deadline for registration expires

The Corporate Affairs Commission has said it will work with law enforcement agencies and other legal means to shut down recalcitrant Sales Operators who fail to register their businesses as its 60-day deadline lapses.

The Commission disclosed this in a notice Friday on its official X handle.

This comes after CAC on July 7, 2024, issued a 60-day deadline which expired on Thursday, September 5, 2024, for all PoS operators to register their businesses.

CAC noted that there was inadequate compliance with its directive, noting that those who decided not to register may be engaging in unwholesome activities.

“The Commission notes inadequate compliance with the directive for formalization when viewed from the background of the large number of POS operators in the country. Those who have taken steps to formalize in line with the Commission’s directive are commended for their positive attitudes.

“Recalcitrant operators have refused to adhere to the advice for formalization due possibly to engagements in unwholesome activities or for some reasons best known to them.

“We are here to make it clear that the Commission is working with Law Enforcement Agencies and other relevant stakeholders to deploy a comprehensive enforcement and sanction framework that may include not only possible shutdown but other severe legal Consequences.”

Meanwhile, the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, AMMBAN, recently challenged the CAC’s registration directive.

Business

Dangote’s petrol to flood market from Sept 15 — NNPCL

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) has announced that Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), commonly known as petrol, from the Dangote Refinery will begin to flood the market starting on September 15, 2024.

This development follows the refinery’s commencement of petrol refining earlier in the week.

In a statement signed by the NNPCL’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, on Thursday in Abuja, the company clarified that petrol prices would now be determined by market forces.

The statement addressed speculations about price control, reiterating that the downstream sector had been fully deregulated and that NNPCL would no longer fix fuel prices.

Adedapo Segun, NNPCL’s Executive Vice President of Downstream, emphasised that foreign exchange (forex) illiquidity had been a major factor influencing PMS price fluctuations, which are now regulated by the free market as mandated by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

Segun also noted that the current fuel scarcity should ease within a few days as more filling stations recalibrate their systems and resume selling PMS.

He cited Section 205 of the PIA, which established that petroleum prices are governed by market forces rather than government intervention. The exchange rate, he added, significantly impacts fuel prices.

Regarding the supply of petrol from the Dangote Refinery, Segun stated that NNPCL was preparing for the September 15 timeline when products would be available for distribution.

He assured Nigerians that NNPCL is working closely with fuel marketers to ensure stations remain open and well-stocked to meet demand, while measures are being taken to prevent product diversions.

Segun’s comments come on the heels of the Federal Government’s announcement of an impending boost in petrol supply over the weekend, as vessels had started offloading while reaffirming that PMS prices would not be fixed by the government.

Business

PMS Prices are determined by free market forces—NNPC Ltd

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) has stated that foreign exchange (forex) illiquidity has been a significant factor influencing the fluctuation in prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which are governed by unrestricted free market forces, as provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021.

Speaking on TVC News’ “Journalists’ Hangout” show on Thursday, the Executive Vice President of Downstream, NNPC Ltd., Mr. Adedapo Segun explained that the current fuel scarcity was expected to “subside in a few days as more stations recalibrate and begin selling PMS.”

He said Section 205 of the PIA, which established NNPC Ltd., stipulated that petroleum prices were determined by unrestricted free market forces.

According to him, “The market has been deregulated, meaning that petrol prices are now determined by market forces rather than by the government or NNPC Ltd. Additionally, the exchange rate plays a significant role in influencing these prices.”

On the commencement of lifting PMS from the Dangote Refinery, Segun said that the NNPC Ltd. was awaiting the September 15th timeline provided by the Refinery.

Segun, who said no right-thinking individual would be comfortable with the current fuel scarcity, added that the NNPC Ltd. has nearly a thousand filling stations nationwide and was collaborating with marketers to “ensure that stations open early, close late, in order to maintain adequate fuel supply to meet the needs of Nigerians.”

He assured Nigerians: “We are also engaging relevant authorities to ensure products diversions are prevented and timely deliveries to all stations are ensured. The scarcity should ease in the next few days as more stations recalibrate and begin operations.”