Dr Doyin Okupe,The Former Special adviser to Ex President Goodluck Jonathan,rose to the defence of Minister of petroleum Ibe Kachikwu on the backlash he recieved from his statement that fuel scarcity will last til May.
Okupe, in a statement posted on his Facebook page, said “Nigerians hate being told the truth,” while enjoining the people to face the reality.
“The minister of state for petroleum is a Nigerian I know by reputation only. When he was appointed I actually wondered why on earth will a man in his exalted international position and pedigree come into the murky arena of the Nigerian oil business. It can only be patriotism.
“Since he assumed office, I have noticed a high level of professionalism and candour. But Nigerians abhor the truth.
“The minister said a few weeks ago that it is cheaper to import fuel than process our crude locally. I thought that should be obvious to all discerning minds. Our newest refinery is 35 years old. The capacity of the refinery to fractionate.
“Crude reduces drastically with age. In its best form, you get about 51 per cent PMS per barrel of crude refined. But at the current ages of our refineries, we hardly can do more than 35 to 40 per cent. Therefore, our policy of setting aside crude for local refining is outdated and counter-productive and should be stopped.
“Secondly, the minister said this present fuel crisis will tarry till May and all hell was let loose. The minister is right. He quietly informed the nation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is now responsible for 100 per cent of our fuel imports. The reason for this anomaly is not far-fetched.
“We consume 40 million litres of PMS daily. At about $645/tonne that comes to about 55cents per liter is $22m/day. Which importer and which bank in Nigeria of today can open $22 million daily? Not even the Almighty NNPC! So that is the real cause of the scarcity. The truth is what the minister said is that, it’s not going away soonest.
“The only reasonable, cost effective and efficient way of ensuring Nigerians get petroleum products regularly and continuously, without further complicating the unavailability of the dollar and its continued stagnation of the national economy, is by scrapping the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA), stopping the allocation of crude daily for local refining and allocating appropriate volume of crude to the oil majors under a transparent oil swap arrangement,” he said
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add a comment