Business
NARTO Urges Full Deregulation On Diesel, Kerosene
The Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) has urged the Federal Government to commence full deregulation on diesel and kerosene.
The Operations Coordinator of the association, Alhaji Lawal Isa, said this while briefing newsmen in Abuja recently.
He said that the partial deregulation currently in operation had not helped in the production, distribution and marketing of the products.
Isa said that the implementation of the partial deregulation policy on the two products since 2003 had not yielded positive results.
According to him, rather than bring down the prices of the products, it assisted in the astronomical increase of their prices.
He added that two decades ago, the prices of petrol (PMS) and diesel (AGO) were 60 kobo and 50 kobo per litre respectively.
“At the time of partial deregulation in 2003, petrol price was N34 while the price of diesel wasN32 perlitre.
“This translates to 437.5 per cent higher than the prevailing prices prior to partial deregulation,’’he said.
Isa added that it was against this background that the association had called on the Federal Government to reverse the partial deregulation on diesel and kerosene.
He explained that the pitfall was not unexpected because the parameters for the implementation of the policy were designed to favour few individuals.
He said that the policy was deliberately conceived in a manner devoid of a level playing ground for all the economic operators in the system.
He said: “Consequently, the anomaly affects the constant availability of the products in the market.
“Our trucks normally lifted more than two billion litres of Diesel and one billion litres of kerosene annually.
“But in 2009, we lifted only a little over 441 million litres of Diesel and a little over 263 million litres of Kerosene,’’ he added.
“If the past eight years of partial deregulation had been earmarked as the period for test running the policy, then the available result is indicative of its failure.’’