Oil Subsidy: Industry Operative Thinks FG Is Hiding Something
● FG is lying, he insists, on Arise News
By Our Correspondent
The unfolding drama surrounding the decision of the Federal Government to remove subsidy on the pump price of PMS may not go away any time soon.
Emotions are rising across the country as desperate Nigerians, boxed into a corner, face increasing economic hardship.
The cost of food items in the market is spiralling out of control while most cars are off the road, their owners simply unable to buy fuel at the current rate.
At a glance, there is an ongoing debate between experts who agree the Federal Government is right in removing subsidy.
And the ordinary people, including workers, who say their families would be completely ruined before the economic policies of the Bola Tinubu administration take effect.
The Federal Government the other day ordered a stop to an intention by IPMAN, a body of independent marketers, to push for the introduction of another increase in petrol pump price.
It said through Ajuri Ngelale, SSA to the President on Media that another price increase would not be tolerated in Nigeria.
Facing the panel: Chuks Emeka, an oil industry player claims there may still be forms of subsidy that Nigerians do not know about.
Chuks Emeka obviously unimpressed
But Chuks Emeka, an oil industry expert, is alleging that the Federal Government and the NNPC are not telling the entire truth to Nigerians when they say an increment in the pump price for PMS will not never take place.
Emeka who appeared Wednesday on an Arise News programme, Newsday said that the government may still be engaging in subsidy payments on fuel.
He argued that the current landing cost of the product when juxtaposed against the current pump price shows that importers of fuel cannot make profit.
The oil industry player who did not believe Nigeria’s refineries would work because they are obsolete said a great act of deception is taking place.
Somebody may be paying for the existing difference between current pump price of PMS and the actual landing cost, Emeka alleged.
Although he also did not say if the move designed to shield the Nigerian people from exorbitant fuel prices and the interplay of market forces is the right thing to do, Emeka blatantly accused the Federal Government and the NNPC of hiding something from the Nigerian people.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Shettima, his Vice now faced with the daunting task of finding succour for Nigerian families caught in the web of harsh economic realities.
Emeka claimed without offering proof that the Federal Government is propably writing off the difference between landing costs and the current pump price, meaning that fuel subsidy might still be alive somehow.
He said despite all the money spent on the reactivation of Nigeria’s four refineries by successive administrations, such efforts have borne no fruit.
Emeka suggested he did not believe in the pledge made by President Tinubu that the Port Harcourt Refinery would go into full operation in December.
“Countries across the world release part of their strategic reserves when faced with situations such as this”, a management expert in Port Harcourt said when asked if he agrees with Chuks Emeka.
“It is not however known if the Federal Government as part of the strategy to reduce the pain being faced by Nigerians is secretly planning to allow independent marketers access to those strategic reserves in order to curtail the impact of market forces”, he added.
Emeka insisted on Newsday that the Federal Government must come out clean with the Nigerian people, arguing that no marketer would dare import petroleum products at the current landing cost and sell same at the existing pump price.
He asked what Nigerians had benefitted from the removal of subsidy on diesel and aviation fuel.
In the meantime, the Federal Government struggles to reduce the impact of the subsidy removal on the economy and the life of the ordinary Nigerian.