If there is everything the recent home of Representatives public hearing upon the petroleum products subsidy conventional firmly, it is the fact that abuses in the importation and payment of these products have been going on for many years.
If there is all the recent home of Representatives public hearing on the petroleum products subsidy conventional firmly, it is the fact that abuses in the importation and payment of these products have been going upon for several years.The fact that the abuses have been going upon for years should not shock anyone. past the restoration of democratic management in 1999, for instance, Nigerians were subjected to years of not just long queues at petrol stations but with imported inferior petroleum products. The off-specification fuel damaged vehicle engines and afterward affected the health of our people, when a number of those afflicted by respiratory problems taking into consideration asthma and bronchitis reported dead; medical experts speculate that the inferior petrol, which had an dreadful smell, could cause cancer.
The abuses in the importation of the petroleum products were such that the then group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Bayero Dalhatu, had to publicly let pass that there was a large scale importation of petroleum products without the NNPC bodily up to date of it, let alone monster the source. Dalhatu, an engineer, argued that there was no exaggeration the NNPC, a professional and answerable organisation, could have allowed the importation of risky products into the country.
It was superior discovered that the off-spec product was brought into Nigeria by a politically skillfully combined family. The associates was, in fact, importing all the petroleum products. Because of the big demand utter the countrys population of 130 million then, this family could not cope. The upshot was perennial scarcity of fuel, which gave rise to long and endless queues at petrol stations, as without difficulty as arbitrary price increases in most parts of the nation.
Analysts take that the fortune, which this intimates was making from fuel importation accounts for the governments failure to carry out a proper twist something like child support (TAM) in the 1990s in each of the nations four refineries located in harbor Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. The accord for the archaic port Refinery, once a capability to refine 60,000 barrels of sloppy oil per day and the other harbor Harcourt Refinery, in imitation of a skill to refine 150,000 barrels of substandard oil per morning was truth to a third rate European company. The new TAM contracts were also awarded to inexperienced firms, both local and foreign.
It is indispensable to restate these recent facts very nearly the meting out of the downstream sector of the Nigerian petroleum industry because every of a hasty the manner is physical created in some residence that the problems, which the Nigerian public has witnessed in the importation and payment of petroleum products in Nigeria are a new creation. The aerate is categorically misleading.
The problems of fuel subsidy are not new. They existed long before President Goodluck Jonathan came to power. In fact, the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) was created by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo administration as ration of a massive effort to solve this long standing problem. But on the other hand of PPPRA instinctive the solution, it is a pity that the PPPRA itself was to become one of the problems. Even the tardy President Umaru YarAdua was out of the ordinary leader who grappled gone the difficulty of subsidy abuses without success.
Much as the handing out decision to end the payment of fuel subsidy on January 1, 2012, may not be completely well-liked because of the timing and the economic difficulty facing our people, President Goodluck Jonathan must be applauded for not just uncanny courage but also for his sincerity of purpose, because he looked back, wise saying that his predecessors had been unable to stop the subsidy abuses and, rightly or wrongly, he took the bold decision to stop the rot subsequently and for all.
As regards sincerity of purpose, substitute key supervision recognized who deserves hail is the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke. Most petroleum ministers we have seen in this country have not been keen in petroleum subsidy removal clearly because of their private benefits. They have over the years used fuel importation to empower and return party loyalists, intimates members and friends, which profoundly hurts Nigerian citizens. In supplementary words, it is not in the personal interest of a petroleum minister to remove fuel subsidy. For daring to be exchange Mrs. Alison-Madueke deserves kudos.
Looking incite more than Alison-Maduekes tenure as minister, it is easy to see a consistent pattern of infuriating to solve this problem. Even before the situation of subsidy removal came up, the minister insisted upon getting the native builders of Nigerias four refineries to carry out the point of view more or less Maintenance. The excuse for choosing the original builders is to stop the practice where the refineries fail to feat even after TAM has just been finished because of the low calibre of the contractors. The indigenous builders of the refineries are world class engineering firms. Therefore, they have a reputation to protect.
By the become old the TAM is concluded within one year, even if there are not satisfactory petroleum products for local consumption from the four refineries, which collectively have the capacity to refine 445,000 barrels of inexpert oil per day, the request for imported fuel will reduce drastically. This expand will have an immediate salutary impact on the countrys expenditure on fuel subsidy and on our foreign argument reserve, as well as upon employment and event opportunities for the Nigerian people.
In greeting to the problems that had been brewing in PPPRA, Mrs. Alison-Madueke inaugurated last November a supplementary team at the PPPRA when the mandate to clean stirring the mess. past then the new PPPRA management has taken some indispensable steps to sanitise the importation and payment of fuel and their efforts have been intensely commended by industry watchers.
Not even the most dedicated opposition or critic of President Jonathan can fail to believe that his administration has demonstrated fabulous courage and self-sacrifice in tackling the challenge of importing and paying for fuel in Nigeria, which has been draining Nigerias national treasury for skillfully on top of 10 years. If on your own previous presidency officials had displayed such faithfulness to the common good, the petroleum subsidy matter would have been utter long ago, or would not have risen at all. The President Jonathan administration has, gone another time demonstrated the virtue of placing national relieve above parochial and personal interest. We are impressed.
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