Oil marketers have insisted that the Federal Government has returned to subsidizing the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol.
On Tuesday, the marketers said if it were not so, petrol would have been selling for about N800/litre.Monday, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, denied returning to subsidy.
He said the company was recovering its full cost from the products that it had imported, so sailing between N580/litre and N617/litre, depending on the location, wasn’t an issue.
Kyari said, “I told you there’s no subsidy whatsoever, we are recovering our full cost from the products that we import. We sell to the market, we understand why the marketers are unable to import.
Monday, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, denied returning to subsidy.
He said the company was recovering its full cost from the products that it had imported, so sailing between N580/litre and N617/litre, depending on the location, wasn’t an issue.
Kyari said, “I told you there’s no subsidy whatsoever, we are recovering our full cost from the products that we import. We sell to the market, we understand why the marketers are unable to import.
“We hope that they do this very quickly, and these are some of the interventions the government is doing. There is no subsidy.”
Reacting to the federal government’s position, oil marketers have maintained that fuel subsidy has returned while criticising Kyari for saying what they described as false.
Speaking to The Punch, the National Secretary of, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Chief John Kekeocha, 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.
“They are 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?
“You cannot wake up overnight and remove subsidy without considering the pros and cons, only for you to wake up again and start putting back the subsidy into play secretly, and you think Nigerians will not know.”
Speaking further about the implication to the sector, the IPMAN official said, “I am telling you that in a very short time, there will be no product anywhere in this country, apart from the tank farms that have access to diesel.
“This is because many marketers cannot even function well with the cost of diesel. Check the cost of diesel and the cost of supply and distribution. How many marketers can do it and sell at about N600/litre? The cost of landing PMS is over N700/litre.”
Furthermore, Kekeocha noted that Independent marketers control about 80 per cent of filling stations across the country, so in a situation where they can not compete in the market, it only means looming scarcity.
“So 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,” the IPMAN official stated.
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