Abuja – The Petroleum and Natural
Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has called on President
Muhamadu Buhari to increase local refining capacity before embarking on any
deregulation process
This is contained in a statement on
Tuesday by PENGASSAN National Public Relations Officer, Mr Emmanuel Ojugbana.
The union called on the president to
ensure that the focus of deregulation policy was based on local production
rather than importation.
It said that if local refining was
not increased to meet local demand for petroleum products, especially the
premium motor spirit (petrol), removing subsidy on petroleum products would
bring more hardship on Nigeria.
It stated that removing subsidy
while the country depended on importation of refined products would make prices
of refined products to be out of the reach of the masses and would cause
inflation.
It said that importation of refined
petroleum products was a major drain on the nation’s revenue, adding that it
created jobs for the refining nations in spite of the high unemployment rate
confronting Nigeria.
“Importation of refined petroleum
products is also putting the Naira under undue pressure and creating social
problems for the economy.
This is unacceptable to PENGASSAN.
“Abrupt removal of fuel subsidy will
create chaos that may ground the economy.
“PENGASSAN calls for
well-coordinated measures with timeline to achieve self-sufficiency in local
refining as a means of proffering acceptable steps to end fuel subsidy.
“This should be combined with such
other measures for effective optimisation of gas, especially for domestic,
industrial, electricity and automotive energy. Such will create other
affordable and friendly sources for energy needs” it stated.
It called on the government to
declare a state of emergency in the downstream oil and gas sector.
It also urged the government to
convene an all-stakeholders forum to come up with concrete and sustainable
steps with reliable timeline for achieving demand-supply equilibrium through
local refining.
It stated that the strategy must be
to guarantee a total stoppage of both petroleum products importation and fuel
subsidy.
It said Nigerians expect that
relying on the resources that the nation was endowed with, the country should
be able to provide refined products at reasonable and affordable prices to the
populace,
It stated that this could have been
possible if local refining capacities were enhanced.
It explained that both the
government and industry operators had always yearned to promote competition and
efficiency but failed to assure on how to enhance local refining capacity to
contain local demand.
“Government is thus persistently
confronted with import parity pricing and the burden of subsidising the
imported fuel instead of locally refined products.
“As an important stakeholder in the
sector, we oppose the petroleum products importation regime, which is rent
seeking and indeed a drain device that is inimical to our economic and social
empowerment.
“It is affecting our self-dependence
and means of job creation. Thus, we maintain our unwavering belief in local
refining,” it stated.
It stated that PENGASSAN strongly
subscribed to the retention of the state-owned refineries in the best interest
of the Nigerian nation and for economic security.
It stated that this was in keeping
with OPEC’s principle that member countries should hold good grip of the commanding
height of their economy.
“PENGASSAN maintains strong
objection to the privatisation of state-owned refineries as the OPEC principle
is being cautiously guided by other OPEC member countries,” it stated.
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