Kerosine And The Subsidy Question

The House of Representatives last week
started investigation into recent
allegations surrounding the subsidy, cost and availability of kerosine in Nigeria. Already, there are conflicting statements on the subject that makes this probe imperative.
Being a product needed by nearly everyone, kerosine on its own attracts so much interest. It is therefore, understandable when inflammatory reactions emerge when simple questions on the management of the product fail to add up. In fact, the revelation that the Presidency and the NNPC work at cross-purposes on the matter is disgusting.
No wonder, therefore, that many Nigerians want to know why kerosine is hardly available. They want to know why a product that is said to be subsidised is being sold above the approved N50 per litre price and why the NNPC should be the body to decide how to source it, how to pay for it and even to subsidise it in spite of the fact that no sum was appropriated for the purpose.
Speaking at the hearing organised by the House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, alleged that the country had spent more than N1trillion to subsidise kerosine in the last four years.
Represented by the Deputy Speaker, Hon Emeka Ihedioha, the House Speaker said since there was no budgetary provision for subsidy on kerosine, Nigerians would want to know the source of funding for the subsidy, especially, given the fact that a Presidential directive was issued in June 2009 to stop subsidy on kerosine.
“When kerosine is available at all, it is sold at such exorbitant rates that Nigerians have to pay huge sums to get the product … this mystery surrounding kerosine subsidy warrants a full scale investigation to unravel the truth”, he said.
Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Andrew Yakubu,had  listed diversion, sharp practices by middlemen, usage of kerosine for road construction, and as aviation fuel, pipeline vandalism, industrial application, among others, as some of the reasons why kerosine was not only readily available for domestic consumption, but also expensive for the ordinary Nigerian.
Yakubu said that apart from repairing vandalised pipelines, and reviving depots across the country to check diversion and smuggling of kerosine, NNPC was also stepping up the supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), otherwise known as cooking gas from 65,000 metric tonnes in 2011 to 250,000 metric tonnes in 2013 as a means of reducing the hardship caused by kerosine scarcity.
He also stated that “kerosine subsidy was funded by unrealisable revenue inflow”, explaining that “the NNPC takes crude at international price, and refines to kerosene, which it sells at the domestic market at regulated price of N50 per litre.”
He said that “NNPC became the sole importer and supplier of kerosine when marketers withdrew because of the uncertainty over subsidy in 2011.” Admiting that although there was a Presidential directive to stop kerosine subsidy, the directive was ineffective because it was not gazetted.
It is clear that some of the answers to issues raised only serve to raise more questions instead of the needed succour for the ordinary Nigerian, who depends on kerosine for both his domestic and commercial use. Clearly, all these would have been avoided if the country had optimally utilised her refineries and acquired newer and more portable models over the years.
While the kerosine problem may be seen as one crisis too many in some quarters, the truth must be told that this perhaps is the first time Nigeria is seeing the true dividend of democracy. This opportunity to ask questions and get answers may not only minimise the incidence of impunty in the polity, but discourage waste, corruption and speculations.
This is why we expect the National Assembly to do a thorough job on this matter. Everything must be done to ensure that the committee was not compromised or its findings locked away from public eyes. But the point must be made also  that if Nigerians are looking for the product even at  black market price, the clamour to subsidise the product becomes meaningless. Clearly, the solution to this problem is not unknown.