Nigeria is broke and can no longer afford subsidy on importation of petroleum products outside its shores, the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN),has said.
Its Chairman, Tunji Oyebanji, who disclosed this in Lagos did the right thing by yanking it off from the 2020 budget and commencing aggressive launch of full deregulation of the downstream sector, which will reduce smuggling of the product to barest minimum.
He explained that with full deregulation in place, more funds will be available to the government for investment in infrastructure, roads, health, education and power.
“Deregulation means that prices will go up and down. They went down in April now they will go up as we are entering the European winter season and demand for refined crude goes up.
“Already there are indications of more investments in local refining in Nigeria which will moderate the cost. Fierce competition will also moderate the price. As you can see, not everyone is selling at the same price. So as things stand we are into full Deregulation.
“Unfortunately this is coming at the time when most of our citizens are struggling with difficulties created within the context of the post COVID-19 economy, but we believe that Nigeria has been presented with a historic opportunity to get it right this time as a country to rebuild our economy for the benefit of all Nigerians”.
He said following the increase of ex-depot prices by PPMC, the magnitude of the increase, timng and location is a decision left to each company.
He added: “Consistent with global best practices, MOMAN does not dictate prices to it’s members as this would be anti-competition in a fully deregulated market. We welcome governments’ action in allowing the market to determine prices as we believe it’s will prevent the return of subsidies while allowing operators the opportunity to recover their costs.
