Stakeholders insist on fuel subsidy removal

Stakeholders insist on fuel subsidy removal

Stakeholders insist on fuel subsidy removal

Ghana urges Nigeria to follow own example
Stakeholders in the country’s
downstream sector have insisted that due
to the fall in crude oil prices which has
resulted in decline in revenue
generation, the Federal Government has
to remove subsidy on petroleum
products.
The stakeholders gave the advice in
Lagos yesterday at the Oil Trading
Logistics Africa conference where they
gathered to deliberate on “Fuelling
Economic Growth through Petroleum
Policy and Infrastructure: The
Downstream Agenda”.
The Chief Executive of Ghana Petroleum
Authority, Moses Asaga, advised Nigeria
to follow the Ghana example of
deregulation of the downstream sector.
Other stakeholders, including Group
Managing Director of Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe
Kachikwu; former Minister of State for
Petroleum, Odein Ajumogobia; and
former Executive Secretary of Petroleum
Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency,
Reginald Stanley, expressed belief that
the privatisation of the country’s
downstream sector is the only way out of
its current challenges.
According to Asaga, Nigeria has a lot to
learn from Ghana about the
management of the petroleum
downstream sector. He noted that
deregulation policy will take away the
sole right of the national petroleum
company to determine the prices of fuel
products in the country.
Asaga said deregulation also allows the
various bulk oil distribution companies
to determine how much they would want
to charge for fuel to their customers. He
said Ghana had always seen Nigeria as a
big brother and had learnt a lot from
Nigeria in respect to management of the
petroleum industry. “But this time
around, I think Nigeria needs to learn
about managing the downstream sector
from Ghana. We have been able to
deregulate our downstream sector of the
petroleum industry”.