AD, ASUU denounce fuel price hike
Vanguard, By Sina Babasola Monday, June 23, 2003
IBADAN—THE opposition Alliance for Democracy (AD) and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday denounced the fuel price hike with ASUU saying the price increase was based on "false economic argument." The AD in a statement by its national director of publicity, Mr Opeyemi Bamidele regretted what he called "the utter lack of a visionary policy by the PDP - controlled federal government which after four years of ‘governance - by-experiment’ has failed to revamp and revive the ailing oil industry." He said: "today, after almost a N100 billion has been sunk in the last 4 years by the federal government to revive the 4 refineries, the average capacity utilisation is still an abysmal 50%.
"It is to the utter shame of the PDP policy makers as they return to the jaded old policy of "robbing" the poor Nigerians to pay for the deficiency of the NNPC monopoly in fuel supply and distribution. Nigeria has dangerously turned from being a net exporter to a net importer of petroleum products and the three previous increases in the prices of petroleum products in the last 4 years has not improved nor reversed this ugly trend. "The PDP-controlled federal government, in the absence of a dynamic and innovative leadership, lacking creativity, has led Nigeria into a precarious economic capacity.
"If what the duo of Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi, Chairman of Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and President Olusegun Obasanjo told Nigerians last week are true, then the annual loss of (N250bn) or $1.8bn by the NNPC due to importation of fuel and the supposed annual subsidy on petroleum products are enough to have built a minimum of 5 modern, efficient petroleum refineries, each producing 100,000 barrels per day in the last four years of "experimental governance". This additional volume would have been enough to cover the shortfall due to rising demand and ageing refineries. "This lack of proactive and visionary policy has turned the PDP-controlled federal government today into a reactionary and short-sighted regime.
"If the landing cost of imported PMS (petrol) fere on board is N28.54 per litre as disclosed by Chief Gbadamosi, it means that petrol is relatively far cheaper in the countries from where we imported it than when compared with the old price of N26.00 per litre in Nigeria. "With the exclusion of Venezuela which is in an economic slump and war-ravaged Iraq, Nigeria under the prodigal leadership of the PDP remains the only OPEC-member country which imports refined petroleum, even though Nigeria is not war-ravaged nor in economic slump. "We hereby call on the architects of this provocative hike in fuel prices to go back and do their homework well before coming to the court of public opinion.