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The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) highlights the dire consequences of the soaring cost of importing Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), warning that private petrol marketers are being priced out of the market, and leaving the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited as the sole entity capable of importing the essential fuel.
“Right now, the landing cost of PMS is over ₦1,200, without the margin of the marketers, transportation and other logistics,” IPMAN National Operations Controller, Zarama Mustapha, said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday.
“NNPC sells to marketers at ₦565 or so. That means there is a subsidy of almost ₦600 to ₦700 as of now.
“Whether they (government officials) say there is subsidy or there is not subsidy, the fact on the ground clearly states that there is something they are under-recovering.”
Read also: Reinstating Petrol Subsidy Will Compound Poverty – NOA Head
Last week’s #EndBadGovernance protests, which drew thousands of Nigerians fed up with soaring food prices and economic hardship, featured a unified call to action: restore the petrol subsidy, a move many see as a crucial step towards alleviating the country’s deepening fuel crisis.
But during a nationwide broadcast on Sunday, President Bola Tinubu said he “took the painful yet necessary decision to remove fuel subsidies and abolish multiple foreign exchange systems which had constituted a noose around the economic jugular of our Nation and impeded our economic development and progress”.
The IPMAN official nodded in agreement with the protesters’ concerns, but tempered his support with a dose of realism, questioning whether the government had the fiscal bandwidth to accommodate their demands, particularly the costly reinstatement of petrol subsidies.
“Their demands are cogent, and in consistent with the realities on the ground, looking at the economic situation of the country. They have every right to go and demand that. But the other side of it is that government can do what it can be able to afford.
“If you say we should revert to ₦200 or ₦250, can the government afford that much of a burden? The government has found itself in a very difficult situation.
According to Mustapha, it was essential to exercise patience and carefully consider the best way forward, given the multifaceted nature of the situation, which was more complicated than widely understood, and the government’s precarious position.
