The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) is insisting that the President Bola Tinubu-led government is still spending billions of naira on fuel subsidy.
National Secretary of the association, John Kekeocha, stated this following a denial by Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that the government was paying subsidy.
There were media reports that the federal government paid N169.4 billion as subsidy in August to keep the pump price at N620 per litre.
Festus Osifo, National President of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), had also confirmed that subsidy payment was still on, due to the cost of crude oil in the international market and the exchange rate.
Kekeocha said:
“When the government removed the PMS (fuel) 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 subsidizing products as we speak.
“They are spending billions of naira to subsidize products, and because they know that this country may go on fire if Nigerians buy products at about N1,000 per 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.
He lamented that fuel was now very costly and many marketers could no longer afford it, and still sell to compete with the tank farm owners who sell at about N617 per litre.
“Consumers cannot see where the product is sold cheap and go to where it is costly.”
“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 has been reducing daily.
“It is only subsidy that can keep the price of fuel at the rate that it is now at about N600 plus. Otherwise, any moment from now, the cost of a litre of fuel will be about N800/litre or more,” he added.
