By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, has commended President Bola Timubu for removing fuel subsidy, saying it will help Nigeria’s economy.
National President, of IPMAN, Debo Ahmed, who stated this yesterday while addressing newsmen in Abuja, said the association has been in
support of fuel subsidy removal for a very long time because of its implication on the economy and the market space.
He said in the past, a lot of money that should be channeled to the development of country is used on subsidy.
“I commend the president for removing subsidy on his first day in office. He has tried. He did a very good job. Successive government found it difficult to remove subsidy. Not that they don’t want to remove it because the political exigency is more than economic exigency to them.
“If you remember, during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s time, they came with appropriate pricing, deregulation. They gave it all sort of names but they could not do it. Obasanjo was only increasing the price and you increase the price the thing is still there because we are importing. The president has done a good job and it is going to help this country a lot.”
However, he queried the government for not putting palliatives in place to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians and the marketers.
“Before the removal, PIA was signed and fuel subsidy was big issue in the PIA of 2021. The government should have started planning about palliatives like provision of buses, salary increase because it is not the government that will increase salaries but the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
“All these things should have been done but the government did not do all these things. I am sure that the new government is doing something about palliatives.”
Speaking on importation of the product, he said they have several issues and that the issue is still lingering.
“Before now, it is only NNPCL that imports. All the marketers depend on NNPCL to get their products. When the subsidy removal was announced, we had a lot of tickets that are pending. We have up to 5 billion worth of tickets that are pending with NNPCL retail that we have not been able to access. Most of these monies were borrowed from the banks. Our members are not enthusiastic to go and load because they don’t know what happened to their tickets. We are trying to meet with the management of NNPC retail to discussed these issues amicably.
“About the crises, it is only those who don’t know what is happening. The court judgment favours us in every dimension. However, we must sit in a round table and settle these issues. Our BOT are discussing, the earlier we come together, the better for the association.
“IPMAN controls 70 percent of the market. The purpose of establishing IPMAN has been achieved. If IPMAN is united it would be better for the country because we would be able to import more products and crash the price in the long run for the benefit of our people.
“IPMAN can do a lot to bring prices of petroleum product down. The prices will be within that range for now. A lot of product has to be in the market for it to come down. And IPMAN is in a position to bring in a lot of product to make sure that the price is a little bit down. Since the market has been deregulated, a lot of people will bring in products and when the products come, the law of economics that is supply and demand will set it and certainly prices will go down.”
