The Federal Government through the Group Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mr Mele Kyari has denied reports claiming that the present administration has reintroduced Fuel Subsidy.
Mr. Kyari who Spoke with State House correspondents on Monday, shortly after a private meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, insisted that the subsidy regime is not back.
“No subsidy whatsoever. We are recovering our full cost from the products that we import. We sell to the market, we understand why the marketers are unable to import. We hope that they do it very quick and these are some of the interventions government is doing. There is no subsidy”, Kyari affirmed..
The NNPC Boss also disclosed that the company was not planning to increase pump price of Premium Motor Spirit(PMS), assuring that the price remains the same and queues resurfacing at some fuel stations in some parts of the country was due to panic buying.
“We have seen in very few states pockets of very low queues, not unconnected with the road situation that we’re seeing the number of blockades on our road crossing products from the southern depots into the northern part of the country and it takes them a much longer time than they do now.
“They have to reroute the trucks around many, many locations for them to be able to reach and that created delays and some supply gaps. But that has been filled and we do not see any of such problems again.
“Secondly, because of the full deregulation that we have in this sector, marketers are now competing amongst themselves. So you must have noticed some fuel stations will reduce price by two Naira and three Naira so customers will naturally run to the places where you have that reduction in prices, that creates panic, because for those who don’t know why they are doing it, they will think that there’s something wrong happening, or there’s an ominous sign of scarcity or people start queuing up in the fuel stations”, he said.
Observing that Nigeria has over 1.4billion liters in stock, the NNPC GCEO revealed that the Federal Government is addressing Oil Marketers challenges bothering on access to Foreign exchange.
” There is no challenge. Supply is robust. We have over 1.4 billion litres of product in our hands both marine and land. Also there are no issues around delivery of those products into the land. So there is no fear, nothing
“Of course there are a few issues we’re engaging them to resolve alongside other agencies of government and critical issues around access to foreign exchange.
“As you all know, government is doing so much to ensure supply of FX into the market. We know that this FX markets will stabilize. current I&E window is around 770 and we know that the inputs of government today will crystallize and also come to an equilibrium position in the FX market and this is a dream of this country.
So they will have a stable FX market, stable product market where the prices of product will also speak to prices of other commodities. And this is already manifesting and we think this is the economic revolution that this country needs”, Kyari said .
