Spread the word
Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has condemned the proposal by the federal government to peg the price of fuel at N1350 per litre, saying it falls short of Nigerian’s expectations.
Lead Director of the non-governmental organisation (NGO), Barr. Eze Onyekpere, made this known in a statement in Abuja.
He said: “The announcement by the FGN through the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy for a price modulation mechanism to ensure that petrol price stabilizes at not more than N1350 falls short of the expectations of Nigerians who desire a reasonable relief that reduces the hardship.
“Nigerians were buying petrol at about N800 before the start of the America-Israel-Iran war. The expectation is that any relief measure should revert fuel price to the N800 figure with a sequenced detailed plan to further reduce the price between N400-N500 per litre in the medium term.”
According to him, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) notes with keen interest the debate by stakeholders including organized labour, political parties, organized private sector and civil society on the appropriateness of the removal or continuation of fuel subsidy. “The fundamental case for subsidy removal in the last fifteen years had been that the subsidy regime was riddled with corruption. It was supposed to free up resources for governments to invest in infrastructure, security and human capital development, etc.
“However, subsidy has been removed but the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) still borrows massively and fails to fund the budget.
“Nigerians are faced with high fuel prices due to the removal of fuel subsidy. Nigerians have borne the pain without the promised benefits accruing.
“But massive corruption remains in the sector including industrial scale crude oil theft, a corruption that eats up more resources than the subsidy savings. NNPC still spent over $8 billion for an undefined “energy security”.
Onyekpere further maintains that the proposed reduction is possible through the following measures:
•” Set a domestic price cap regime for crude oil indexed on the desired official policy price per litre of different petroleum products and the Nigerian standard of living. This will produce a price lower that the international price of crude oil.
• “Empirically determine the number of barrels per day needed by local refineries to satisfy Nigeria’s refined petroleum product needs. Take cognisance of the fact that crude oil produces over 21 derivatives – more than petrol, diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel.
Spread the word