President Muhammadu
Buhari has promised that his administration would handle the issue of subsidies on petroleum products with care.
The President stated this after receiving briefing from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies in the oil sector.
According to him, he will carefully review all the submissions he had received on the need to remove the subsidies.
“I have received much literature on the need to remove subsidies but much of it has no depth. “When you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effect of triggering price rises on transportation, food and rents. That is for those who earn salaries.
“But there are many who are jobless and will be affected by it,” the President noted.
Buhari also said that insecurity, sabotage, vandalism, corruption and mismanagement, not necessarily subsidies, were the most serious problems of Nigeria’s oil sector.
He, therefore, promised to deal decisively with all identified problems of the oil and gas sector.
“We have to go back to the good old days of transparency and accountability,’’ the President said .
He directed the NNPC to review existing agreements for the swapping of crude oil for refined products with a view to injecting more honesty and transparency into the process to reduce costs.
He also asked the NNPC management to do more to improve the supply of liquefied petroleum gas (cooking gas).
Meanwhile the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara says any call for the removal of petroleum subsidy can only be done through the amendment of Price Control Act 1977.
According to him, the amendment cannot be by presidential fiat or government policy.
Dogara said this while addressing national executives of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), led by its President, Chinedu Okoronkwo in Abuja recently.
“As a legislator, I can tell you there is something about subsidy removal that we are not looking at.
“If you look at Section 4 of the Price Control Act, it talks about regulating the prices of products that are listed in the First Schedule of the Act.
“One of the products listed in the first schedule is petroleum. So by law in this country, we must control the price of petroleum products.’’
According to the Speaker, the law passed by parliament gives the responsibility of adding up items on the schedule to the Price Regulating Board.
“I am not sure we have that board in place. So, for any discussion to be meaningful, you have to put pressure on the executive. It is not the legislative work to constitute the board.’’
He explained that members of the board could remove petroleum product from the schedule of the Act.
The Speaker expressed regrets over the failure of past administrations to encourage domestic refining of the nation’s crude oil.