MINISTER
of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, must certainly have been on
top of the world when she announced with glee that the Federal Government had
last year saved N850 billion in the downstream sector of the petroleum
industry.
According to her, the savings included N467.20 billion obtained from
the N32 per litre mark-up in petroleum pump price of January 2012 and the
N142.30 billion savings from the N20 million litres per day reduction in
national consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
While
claiming that the government had been able to maintain stability of products
supply as well as putting in place stringent regulatory measures to make it
difficult for dubious marketers to short-change the system, the minister said
“The Federal Government has done extremely well in halting fuel subsidy scams
in the country, and as such, our efforts at transparency and accountability are
beginning to yield positive results”.
Without
prejudice to the various positive reforms, which the minister reported as being
undertaken in the petroleum sector, we believe that her self-congratulatory
elation on the reported savings of N850 billion in the downstream oil sector is
misplaced and even self-indicting. For, this only confirms that the data on
which the Federal Government predicated its decision to remove the purported
fuel subsidy, thereby increasing the pump price of petrol by 100 per cent to
N142 per litre were thoroughly faulty and unreliable. Yet, Nigerians were told
that if the fictive subsidy was not removed, the economy would collapse!
The
implication of the minister’s disclosure is that if Nigerians had not
vehemently protested the insensitive fuel price hike, the fraudulent oil
marketers profiting from a phantom oil subsidy would have continued to smile to
the banks at the expense of millions of deprived Nigerians. It is clearly not
enough for Mrs Alison-Madueke to congratulate herself and the Federal
Government for purportedly taking steps to strengthen regulations and curb the
antics of dubious oil marketers short–changing the system. The point is that
the fuel subsidy scam occurred under the minister’s watch and somebody must be
held responsible for what may be negligence, sheer incompetence or even
collusion.
Impressive
as they may be, the various on-going reforms itemised by the minister cannot
achieve the desired objectives if the issue of massive corruption in the
petroleum industry, particularly the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
(NNPC), is not decisively tackled. Unfortunately, the Federal Government has
shown little inclination in this direction. For instance, the House of
Representatives ad-hoc Committee on the Management of the Fuel Subsidy Scheme
found that about $6 billion was defrauded from the fuel subsidy fund in the
last two years. According to its report, a total of 15 fuel importers collected
more than $300 million in two years, without importing any oil.
It is
unfortunate that while some oil importers allegedly involved in this monumental
swindle have been charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), the prosecution has been perfunctory and anything but
diligent. Indeed, some of the indicted oil importers have reportedly been
listed as suppliers for the third quarter of the year.
In the
same vein, nothing has been done about the damning revelations in the Nuhu
Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force report, which, among others,
found that oil funds that should accrue to the federation are treated by the
NNPC as a reserve of funds that could be used for illicit purposes without
accountability.
Again,
the KPMG audit report detailing massive fraud in the NNPC has been ignored by
government. Can any meaningful reforms towards greater transparency and
accountability in the oil sector be achieved under Mrs Alison-Madueke’s watch?
We doubt it.
Above
all, we do not have any evidence in the economy of any such savings. Yet, it is
too significant to be lost in the system.
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