The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Managing Director of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, Robert Dickerman, has disclosed that despite the Nigerian Government’s announcement of total deregulation of petroleum products, it still disburses approximately one trillion naira monthly for petrol subsidies.
This revelation contradicts Bola Tinubu’s declaration of deregulation on the day of his inauguration.
Speaking during a panel discussion at session six of Nigeria’s Downstream Forum within the recently concluded Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) in Abuja, Dickerman highlighted the ongoing substantial subsidy, emphasizing its role in maintaining the affordability of the product. However, he also expressed concerns that this subsidy might inadvertently fuel smuggling activities to neighbouring nations.
“Foreign investors, foreign lenders and government-run DFIs have been very clear about what they want to see: Conservative fiscal policy, tackling corruption, enabling competitive markets, and enforcement of fairness in markets through policy, regulation and the ability to enforce contracts. Keeping that context in mind, I want to point out that there is still a massive subsidy in PMS, albeit in the FX portion of PMS Price, not the global price in dollars.
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“The consequences of this subsidy are: The cost of gasoline in Nigeria is the lowest in Africa by far, which encourages smuggling out, further depriving Nigeria of value.
“Smuggling causes Nigeria to subsidize neighboring countries even while our economy struggles. The cost is hurting the entire budget, Federal and State, as critical programs cannot be funded to pay this subsidy. It is currently calculated to be about 1 trillion Naira/month.
“Also, with this subsidy in place, ceasing subsidy payments would result in no petrol supply, if there are no refineries producing gasoline. All supplies come from the international market which will only sell at market prices.”
