Amid the controversy surrounding the non-inclusion of petrol subsidy in the 2022 budget, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and oil marketers have explained why the Federal Government will continue to subsidize petrol.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria told Punch during an interview that it would be disastrous for the government to stop the subsidy without functional refineries in the country.
A study of the allocations for the ministries of finance and petroleum resources in the 2022 budget showed that the Federal Government made no provision for petrol subsidy for the coming year.
NNPC’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Garba-Deen Muhammad, in an interview with The PUNCH, confirmed that fuel subsidy would not be stopped until government and labour concluded their talks on the issue.
Muhammad insisted that until negotiations with labour unions were concluded, the price of the commodity would remain the same, stressing that the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, had earlier stated this.
Muhammad said, “I know that the negotiations are ongoing and the minister, when he spoke, he made it clear that no conclusion would be reached and no decision (on subsidy) will be taken until the negotiations are concluded. That is still the situation.”
Also reacting to the issue, IPMAN insisted that the Federal Government has not met some necessary requirements to halt subsidy on petrol.
IPMAN’s National Public Relations Officer, Chief Ukadike Chinedu, stated that getting the country’s refinery working is paramount.
His words, He said, “It will be very disastrous for the Federal Government to remove subsidy without implementing certain factors. The main factor is that the government should ensure that all the refineries are in good working conditions.
“The other is that there must be a level playing ground for modular refineries to be operational in order to boost local production and counter the foreign exchange concerns we face in this country.”
