MOMAN boss says deregulation remains best option

 

• denies NNPC claims on N305 to $1 forex window on fuel importation

 

The Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has said total deregulation of the downstream sub-sector remains the best option, as no marketers is getting foreign exchange at N305 to a dollar for importation of petrol

Its chairman, Mr Tunji Oyebanji who made the clarifications on the sidelines at just concluded Nigerian Oil and Gas conference in Abuja.

Oyebanji said this against the backdrop of the Chief Operating Officer, Downstream, NNPC, Mr Henry Ikem-Obih claimed that marketers were given forex intervention schemes at N305 to a dollar, rolled out by the Central Bank of Nigeria and co-managed by the NNPC had been extremely successful.

The MOMAN boss said none of its members are getting foreign exchange at N305 to a dollar for the importation of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol.

According to him, I don’t know who is getting it at that 305, so, if NNPC is given some marketers at that rate, I want to believed is not a transparent thing. I don’t know who is getting it.

“If we are getting it 305 for importation of petrol, we will be importing but we are not getting it, when the scheme started, that was the plan and CBN was the one handling it.

“ Eventually, the NNPC took over it, and we don’t know who is getting it at N305. So, maybe he can enlighten us by publishing the names of those who are getting it,” he said.

Oyebanji, who also the Managing Director of 11Plc (formerly Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc), said: We are not importing petrol at all but if we want to import Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) or Aviation Turbine Kerosene (aviation fuel), we have to go and buy at N330 or N346.

“You can’t compete because the NNPC is bringing everything at N305; so, it is not a level-playing field at all.

“If we are getting forex at 305 may be, we be able to import but again technically, for the country as a whole does it truly makes sense, in the market dollars is being sold at N360.

“So what Nigeria should be earning for every dollar it generates should be N360 that’s really the market value so every time you are selling at N305 you are also subsiding and it’s a loss to the country. So, we all have to determine what we want to do.

The MOMAN Chief said for now, there is no other alternative for marketers to commence importation of petrol until Dangote refinery come on stream, which might ease supply and reduced fuel importation.

“Marketers can’t import fuel because if the price remains at this level it was, how can marketers import when the landing cost is more than pump price, for now, only NNPC can absorb that.

“And indirectly it’s you and I that are bearing the cost because the money would have been put in other things, we are all used to drive with cheap fuel that’s what we seem to like.

“The truth of the matter is that deregulation is not an easy subject because there obviously political ramification, if it was easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

“I think people are so used to paying for a relatively cheap price for petrol in Nigeria, so to change the situation, people have to be convinced that whatever saving that is made its going to be put to good used.

He urged government to plan ahead of deregulation so that Nigerians can be prepare for the deregulation, adding that if planning will take us five years, let it start from somewhere as deregulation should not caught Nigerians unaware.

He said that there should a palliative to cushion the effect of for the total deregulation, while commending government for its responding on payment of marketers outstanding subsidy debts.

Oyebanji said that marketers’ debts which stood over N300 billion has been paid by government, saying that significant portion of the money has been paid through the promissory note.

“ In case of MOMAN, it was originally over N8 billion but it has being reduced to N2 billion.