Victor Ezeja
Admin
Oil marketers in the country under the aegis of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) of twisting the facts as regards the reintroduction of fuel subsidy.
This was as they wondered what magic can make petrol to be sold below the landing cost of N720 when foreign exchange is over a N1000.
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While picking holes with the insistence of the Group Managing Director of NNPCL, Mele Kyari that “there is no subsidy whatsoever”, the oil marketers accused the federal government of “spending billions of naira to subsidise products, and because they know that this country may go on fire if Nigerians buy products at about N1,000/litre, they keep twisting facts. Why can’t they come out and tell the world the truth?”
IPMAN’s National Secretary, Chief John Kekeocha, while disclosing this to newsmen yesterday, said the current pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, should not be less than N800/litre if there was no subsidy on the commodity. PMS currently sells at between N580/litre and N617/litre depending on the part of the country where it is being purchased. Whereas the landing cost of the commodity as of last week is N720.
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Explaining why it is clear that subsidy has been reinstated by the government, he said: “I don’t know why the government keeps peddling lies. When they removed the PMS subsidy, a dollar was about N700 and they made us believe that the removal of subsidy would make the supply of products play according to the dictates of demand and supply, looking at forex as the benchmark.
“Now, this is just simple arithmetic, if you removed the subsidy when a dollar was about N700 and today the dollar is more than N1,000, and you are still supplying and giving products at almost the same rate, what is the magic? They are subsidising products as we speak.” On their part, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) also confirmed the return of fuel subsidy.
Although Kyari had said that the evidence of the deregulation can be seen in the competition among marketers with some selling petrol N2 or N3 cheaper, Kekeocha maintained that “independent marketers cannot compete right now due to the high cost of diesel and the inability to import due to forex issue, which is why you see that the number of functional filling stations nationwide have been reducing on a daily basis”.
