Until Nigeria begins to refine her petroleum products, consumers of premium motor spirit (PMS) should not expect any reduction in price of the product. This is the opinion of Dr. Billy Gillis Harry, National President, Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, PETROAN in an exclusive interview with the Port Harcourt Spectator.
He also welcomed the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu but frowned that the preconditions given by the body was not adhered to before the removal which has caused hardship to the people.
The PETROAN boss also spoke on other sundry issues and what the body is doing to curtail illegalities in the sector.
Excerpts:
Question: Fuel subsidy has been removed and Nigerians are lamenting the hardship that has come with it, what can Nigerians do in the face of this challenge?
Response: Incidentally, we are digging more depths that would have swallowed us faster if we had continued to support the subsidy regime. Subsidy that we are borrowing millions of naira to pay as a country, anybody who truly loves this country should be able to do the mathematics and see where we are headed, that in a matter of years, this country would not have been our country, it would have been owned by other people. There is a lot that responsible and well meaning Nigerians should take. That yes! Subsidy removal is going to bring some kind of hardship, but it is a decision that has to be made and it has been made so let’s workout fast out of that hole.
We have saved some money since the subsidy removal, so what is being done with the money? Are we transparently being informed? So these are what we should hold our government accountable for, that subsidy has been removed and Nigerians should stay behind that decision but there are other things that must make life very easy, affordable and livable for Nigerians so this is where I think we should focus now. Let’s think of solutions that would be able to bring succor to Nigerians in every aspect of life whether transportation, medical, educational, growth in business, aviation fuel provision and different kind of things that we can do to better the lots of Nigerians.
Question: As a body are you in support of the removal?
Response: We are completely in support of the removal of subsidy. We as an association have called for the removal of subsidy so many years prior to 29th of May, 2023 but we gave preconditions. One of it must be that atleast minimum, two of the refineries in Nigeria must be up and running, so that should form a basis on which Nigerians can fall back because if we are going to remove subsidy and depend on imports, then we are never going to grow economically because petrol powers almost everything that Nigerians do for economic growth. So the president and his team, luckily ministers have been screened and certainly there is going to be a minister of petroleum soon, so we believe that policies that can drive Nigeria out of these challenges and bring about succor and economic growth and more bright and fruitful Nigeria is in the offing but we must hold our leaders accountable because that’s the only thing we don’t do as Nigerians. So PETROAN supports subsidy removal but we had hoped that there should have been a process where we could have been able to project in real terms, economic projections, in real time imperial values to know what we should do before subsidy is removed, what we should do on the day subsidy is removed and what we should do the day after subsidy is removed but that was not done.
Question: In other words subsidy was removed without any considerations?
Response: Those necessary things we should be able to see before subsidy removal, we didn’t see them and as far as I know, there was no clear-cut stakeholders engagement to get the Nigerian people to also be part of the process in deciding that which is their right.
Question: President Buhari’s last nationwide broadcast didn’t talk about refineries being revamped or not, what’s your take on that?
Response: There is no way we can be satisfied with that if an emergency is not declared in revamping and putting our refineries into working condition. We should have in-country refining capacity capable of meeting sixty percent of Nigerians PMS needs and if we are not working towards that, if the policies and statements are not clearly stating how that should happen transparently then that’s not good enough.
Question: Price of gasoline is gradually increasing; perhaps because people are now reverting to it since fuel is now expensive, what’s the way out of this?
Response: Nigeria is more a gas nation than an oil producing nation. So again, the need to gallop our in-country capacity to shut our gas, refine our gas, treat our gas, process them and be able to use them because we are flaring it and there is no reason why gas should be expensive in this country. But again, these are policy issues that must be pursued drastically and that’s thesame thing we are going to be counselling the President and his team that all flaring of gases should be stopped immediately and partner with the private sector to ensure that gas production is optimal and available.
Question: Is there any possibility that price of petrol would ever be stable or reduce?
Response: We can only do that if we have in-country refining capacity. So long as we are dependent on imported PMS of any kind, they are still being dollarised. So you are buying one litre of fuel at the pump as a dollar converted to Naira. So long as the Naira is losing value to the dollar, it will impact on the price of PMS at the pump, so the only time I think we can have pricing down is when our in-country refining is beefed up and that’s what we hoped should happen.
Question: Is your Association meeting Government or stakeholders to find a way out of these challenges?
Response: We always do engagement with the government. We always do engagement with the regulator, we engage with NNPCL, the consultation from us is continuous and it’s going to be consistent because we as an association, we are very patriotic. Our key focus in PETROAN is efficient delivery of petroleum products to the end users, in that there must be transparent and honest weight and measures, there must be non-adulteration and there must be no hoarding. So these are some the things that PETROAN do and members are committed to it not because they are forced but because we want to make a difference and we are actually making a difference in the last two years. Since PETROAN came onboard, any station you see with our sticker, you would see that price are moderate, the attendants are much more humane, they understand why one litre paid for should be one litre.
Question: So are you saying filling stations that sell above government approved prices are not members of PETROAN?
Response: Well, retail outlets have an option to belong to different organisations. PETROAN is like a potpourri of several organisations because any organisation that has a retail outlet must come back to PETROAN. What we are doing as an organization is not what the main association is doing. Our job is to make the retail outlet owner to operate safely, efficiently, productively and with a human-face profit.
Question: As an association, is there any mechanism to make pricing equal at all filling stations?
Response: There could have been such mechanism, if we were all buying products from thesame place. If we buy products from Calabar, the cost would be different as from buying products from Abonnema Wharf or Iwofe in Port Harcourt, if you buy from Oghara or Warri, the pricing would be different. So what the association has done is to make sure that every retail outlet bringing in fuel goes to the 3P Portal which is a technology known as the Petroleum Product Passport that’s an indigenous innovation by PETROAN to be able to check quality and quantity of products and monitor where used. So in PETROAN, we can easily tell you what each retail outlet got over the last month, last few weeks as the case maybe and tell you who and how it was sold because of the use of the PPP and Petroleum Seal which makes it impossible for anybody to adulterate product while in transit and we think this is something that Nigerians should hail us for. PPP is the way out, with PPP we can stop smuggling, adulteration of products and with it we can be certain that even prices can be normalised within the association’s range of influence.
Question: Should Nigerians rely on this PPP solution?
Response: Yes, we are encouraging everybody including IPMAN, NUPENG, tanker drivers and every other Petroleum dealers who also have trucks to use our technology and it’s very cost effective because it saves you alot of nightmare as your product cannot be hijacked, adulterated, nobody can steal it, incessant testing that’s going on from one location to the other that diminishes the quantity would no longer be there because the product can only be opened for legitimate inspection and legitimate discharge.
