IPMAN, Others Explain Support For FG’s Petrol Subsidy Removal

• As NANS threatens shutdown over fuel price hike

BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), said its endorsement of the Federal Government’s plans to remove subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) is informed by provisions in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) that President Muhammadu Buhari signed into law on August 16, 2021.

According to IPMAN President, Chinedu Okoronkwo, since the law does not make provision for subsidy going forward; “We welcome the decision of the government to stop subsidising petrol by 2022 and we are hoping it will attract more investments to the sector, especially with the passage of PIA.”

Okoronkwo hinted that IPMAN has consistently “advised the government to remove petrol subsidy because it is not in the overall interest of development in the downstream sector.”

However, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) is already frowning at the proposal and has warned about dire consequences, including shutting down the country should the Federal Government implement its planned fuel subsidy removal.

The Association also rejected the government’s plan to pay the so-called N5,000 transport allowance to 40 million Nigerians as part of measures to cushion the effect of soaring fuel prices and cost of living in the country.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the IPMAN President said; “We welcome the decision of the government to stop subsidising petrol by 2022 and we are hoping it will attract more investments to the sector, especially with the passage of PIA.

“What we want is that a level playing field is provided for everyone in the sector to encourage competition once the subsidy is removed.”

Also speaking on the issue, the immediate past President, Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Tunji Oyebanji, said continuing to subsidise petrol is not sustainable in light of current economic realities.

He said the 2022 deadline was realistic and its impact might be mitigated with the coming on stream of the 650,000BPD Dangote Refinery, Bua Group Refinery, Waltersmith Refinery, and other modular refineries in the country.

But Oyebanji, who is the Managing Director of 11 Plc, faulted the government’s plan to replace the subsidy with cash transfers to Nigerians given that there is no reliable database in the country.

“In my personal opinion, I am of the view that such funds should be channeled to areas like education and mass transportation that would be accessible to ordinary Nigerians,” he said.

An oil and gas expert, Wilson Opuwei, said the conversation about fuel subsidy in Nigeria “should have been a thing of the past because it was an obvious wastage of the nation’s resources”.

Mr Opuwei, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Dateline Energy Services Ltd., maintained that the elite were the major beneficiaries of the fuel subsidy regime.

He said: “We should let market forces determine the price of petrol and other products, not the government dolling out subsidies with funds that we don’t even have.”

NANS kicks, threatens shutdown

In declaring its aversion to the proposal yesterday, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has threatened to shut down the country should the Federal Government go ahead with the planned fuel subsidy removal.

NANS President, Comrade Sunday Asefon, told journalists in Abuja that the Association would mobilise its 41 million members across the country to protest what he branded a “strange proposal.”

Asefon said the present economic realities in the country make it wrong for the government to contemplate something as critical as deregulating the petroleum sector “without thinking it through, without consultation and without a robust debate.” – With NAN reports