Adewale Oyerinde, the Director-General (DG) of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), has advised the Federal Government (FG) to prioritise the country’s oil and gas refineries to end the controversial fuel subsidy.
Speaking at a media parley in Lagos, the NECA DG argued that the country has the capacity to refine petroleum products that would meet its daily need if the local refineries were functional and complimented by the Dangote Refinery.
“15 to 25 years ago, I am not sure we were having conversations about subsidy, because subsidy was not present. We were not importing as such. Three or four refineries were working optimally and it was taking care of the local consumption of fuel.
“At that point, those refineries started having self-inflicted problems, self-destructive tendencies and we do turnaround maintenance that does not maintain the refineries and progressively importation became the option,” he explained.
According to Oyerinde, if the refineries were working, the country would probably not import fuel.
“We will probably be thinking of exporting now with the Dangote Refinery also coming up. Therefore, we are dealing with the issue of subsidy because we import fuel for local consumption.
“Our position is this, the subsidy is not sustainable. There was a recent report that projected that by the end of the year 2023, the subsidy might run to N11 trillion. No country in the world is arguably subsidising anything to the tune of N11 trillion. The whole of our budget deficit this year is almost N9tn. Next year, the subsidy alone will hit close to N6 trillion,” Oyerinde claimed.
BizWatch Nigeria understands that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration already paid the sum of N2.6 trillion as petrol subsidy claims in the first half of 2022.
