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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari, has said N3.4 trillion is required to subsidise Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) in 2022 as against N4 trillion appropriated for it in the the 2022 fiscal year.
Kyari, who appeared before the House of Representatives Ad-hoc probing the fuel subsidy regime between 2013 to 2021, explained that shipping cost has doubled, consequently, the landing cost has moved from N87 per litre in 2015 to about N327.68 per litre.
“When you compare it to what we sell, you have a N209 on every litre. When you multiply the N209 per litre with an average of 66.7 million litre, you are talking about N3.4 trillion subsidy for the year. The reality today is that if one were to take statistic of the number of vehicles in Nigeria, how many Keke Napep do we have? How many pumping machine do we have. On a routine visit, I saw nothing less than a million Keke, take an average that each one uses four litres every day, that is four million litres, one city. We have not done a study to validate, people are saying that how is it that we are evacuating 66 million a day, that is the reality. Some days, what is evacuated can go as much as 100 million a day, while some weekends, we do zero. The marketers are watching. States that consume the most are states like Oyo and Ogun State, they even consume more than Lagos State, so you wonder, is it that they have more vehicle than Lagos. This explains that these are states with porous borders and that will explain why this bulk evacuation is going out of Oyo and Ogun states, probably neighboring countries,” the NNPC boss, who was represented by the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Umar Ajia, said.
However, Chairman of the Ad-hoc, Ibrahim Mustapha, expressed concerns that the daily consumption of PMS has seemingly recorded a 100 per cent increase in the last 10 years. “There is a committee set up by the 7th Assembly that investigated subsidy. And in the report of that Committee, it was established that 31.500 million litres of PMS were being consumed daily as at that time, that was in 2012….”
He added: “So how come that these trucks will discharge and return back same day and also be able to load to maintain the 64 or 66 million consumption daily? Supposedly that is what I know a layman will easily get confused. And then the second issue, if you look at this your table, gasoline price across West African countries per naira per litre. Maybe you will help a layman like me that probably we are simply subsidizing for West African region, even in Niger Republic it is sold for N536, in Mali, N577, in neighbouring Benin, N389, in Ghana N589 and in Togo N470, in Chad N362, and in Cameron N423 whereas the landing cost plus incidentals, profit and whatever as you projected here is N462 in Nigeria and we subsidise it to N162 or N165 or thereabout.
“Don’t you think we deliberately chooses to sink the country for the benefits of others? What justification can we say we have to justify this to Nigerians? these are some of the key issues we will like to hear from the horse’s mouth.”
