The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria is optimistic that the deregulation of the oil sector following the removal of fuel subsidies will result in a favourable decline in the price of petrol.
Its current rate ranges between N480 and N550 and has proven to be a financial strain for many Nigerian households. Transportation costs have more than doubled in major Nigerian cities, severely limiting workers’ and businesses’ profit margins.
Mr Debo Ahmed, National President of IPMAN, noted that the post-subsidy regime will allow oil marketers to import petrol instead of the subsidy regime in which NNPC was the only supplier.
“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,” he said.
Mele Kyari, the NNPC GCEO, hinted at this two weeks ago, saying that strong competition among oil marketers in the deregulated market would gradually drive down the price of the product.
“As soon as the market stabilizes, oil marketers begin to come in, which means that competition will surely come in and definitely the market will regulate the price itself.”
Despite the rising cost of living, IPMAN has praised President Bola Tinubu’s decision to remove subsidies as a painful but essential step.
“If you remember, during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s time, they came with appropriate pricing, deregulation.
“They gave it all sorts of names, but they could not do it; Obasanjo was only increasing the price, you increase the price the thing is still there because we are importing,” Mr Ahmed said.
According to the association, the country is far better served reinvesting subsidy money in crucial infrastructure.
Furthermore, Mr Ahmed charged the Tinubu administration with facilitating the distribution of palliatives in order to assist Nigerians in navigating the country’s high cost of living.
“The government should have started planning about palliatives like the provision of buses, and salary increase because it is not the government that will increase salaries but the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission.
“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,” he added.
