revolt: My comment is inspired by a comment from a business associate this evening that through ServeNigeria I would have communicated some position on the fuel subsidy debate.
Please I want to deal a policy conversation. And pls don't ask me to come to Ojota cos I have developed sore throat due to this harsh weather and my stomach is aching too.
Currently, If everyday I use 30litres of petrol(Car/Generator), at N65/Litre, I am benefitting N85/Litre daily. This means that the government is spending N2550/day on me. This accrues to N930,750.00 annually spent on me from subsidy.
Meanwhile the 60% unemployed guys in yobe state who do not own cars, do not own generators all are cheated in this subsidy.
However myself and these unemployed buy food at the same costs(including conveyance/transportation costs), so you can see that I am getting 930k extra which I don’t need from the government which they will never get as long as they are unemployed dont own cars and dont own generators.
Please think about it, who needs the 900k more between me and the unemployed?
Is it a fair way of sharing the country’s wealth?
Let us be fair to our brothers who have no jobs!!!!!!!!!
Also for those poor 60% unemployed in Yobe state, they would prefer a health center with their money equivalent or a graded village road. Remember they have already been surviving on expensive kerosene for their fire woods and the food increases barely get to them cos they live quietly in their farms but either way the increment is across board but the excess money spent on people like me and more excess on the wealthy who spend more petrol on their numerous cars, is thrown into the society for the benefit of the less privileged.
It is beta to subsidize mass transportation since the poorer people use mass transit than keep giving money to those who don't need it.
Some people will never enter Lagos are BRT buses or PH mass transit buses no matter the cost, but there are people who will genuinely not be able to accomodate a fare difference of N10.
This policy is for the poor and we should really consider its benefits in addition to the job opportunities.
NNPC will neva work. All over the world, companies 100%owned and 100%run by the government neva works.
When celebrated personalities like Femi Falana, NLC, Okonjo iweala, TUC, Lamido Sanusi, Pat Utomi and Tunde Bakare speak, people should check their comments on google atleast.
There is no global corporation in the size of NNPC and I will give some stats;
Petrobras: Brazil government owns 64%
China Mobile: chinese Government owns 74.22%
Indian Oil – Indian Government (78.92%)
Neste Oil – Finland Government ( 50.1%)
ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited) – India Government (74.14%)
Eni – Italian government (30%)
France Telecom – French Government (27%)
Saudi Aramco – Saudi Government operated BOT system and their intial stake was 24% before increasing it to 60% etc.
Venezuelas PDVSA – Venezuela’s gov started withbuying 50% of Citgo before completing a takeover and renaming it to PDVSA.
Kuwait oil - BP and Gulf had been running the project since December 1934 before government took over in 1975.
QP – (Superior oil Qatar, and Shell company Qatar) and even then government started with a 24% stake before increasing to 60% etc.
Even British Airways was privatized in 1987 even though it still answers British airways.
The Government has realized that NNPC downstream will never serve us, so the best thing is to deregulate the sector allowing for the emergence of private refineries knowing that NNPC refineries will die a natural death like NITEL died but then we have MTN, Airtel, Glo, Etisalat etc.
From a humanist perspective, a single 100,000barrel working refinery can create 3-5000 sustainable jobs. Here I am referring to averagely 30k jobs($30,000 annual salary). How many of our banks and etc companies generate these types of jobs?
Out here we are also looking at 1000regular employee jobs of averagely 50k for each refinery.
Imagine how many refineries we will need to serve the entire 150million Nigerians and another 3.2million barrels daily serving an African population of 500million which will grow to 2billion by 2050 because of Africa's highest birth rate in the world.
Opportunities like this is the reason why countries like Iran are coming to west Africa to survey the possibilities of buildng refineries while we are protesting subsidy.
Also, refineries will produce byproducts which are capable of supporting other industries;
Alkenes (olefins) - plastics industry
Lubricants
Wax - Used in the packaging of frozen foods, etc
Sulfur or Sulfuric acid.
Bulk tar.
Asphalt
Petroleum coke,
Paraffin wax
Aromatic petrochemicals
Also, we need to consider shipping companies who will be distributing our products to other African countries. Rail shipping, road shipping, sea shipping companies will be necessary.
This policy is the fastest route to Six(6) million SUSTAINABLE jobs in ten(10) years, and it will not be government created companies. These will be PRIVATE SECTOR OPPORTUNIST powered.
This oil subsidy is the single most potent policy that can transform our nation within the shortest possible time frame and that explains why every president tries to remove the subsidy.
And also when people use the word “Cabal”. Its fallacy. These guys are doing nothing wrong. Atleast nothing provably wrong. If the inspectors at the port say they saw the supply of 15 or 20MT of petrol, you cannot say they didn’t see it. And its not like its stored as it is supplied, Nigerians are consuming it daily as it is supplied.
Eg. XYZ is given a contract to import 1000MT, instead he supplies 200MT and tips the officials to sign off 100MT. the books are balanced becos everybody at PPMC is tipped. And the profits are so much that the tipping is too significant to turn down.
Now, when the 200MT enters Nigeria, the guy who own a a filling station around the border states recognize that if the fuel sell across the border for N180, then why sell at N65. the margin of extra N115 means that If he uses a 10k petrol tanker, that N1.2million instead of his paltry 100 or 200k profit If he sells at his local filling station.
Nigeria has 14 border states and If you have been to some of these states, you walk on a street and you are asking where the border lies. Some borders are in farmland. So when you decide to invest on tighter border control, it means chasing every motor cyclist who has tied six(6) jerryry cans and every guy who is carry 20litres of petrol in rubber across the farm border.
Also people say the figures went up fron 400billion to 1.13Thrillion.
Part of the answer is that the cost of subsidy depend on oil price and we should start be checking oil price for each of those years during the period of increase. Also, we should acknowledge that we have been paying subsidy for all the neighboring countries too and reverting to N65 means we continue subsidizing for them.
And even if the refineries were producing, we will still be producing and subsidizing for these countries.
Also remember that when the marketers are selling direct to the people, they have to convince us to by the petrol and then our true consumption will be clear because we are in No way consuming N1.13Trillion annually. Its like government deciding to put the money in people's hands and saying pay for the fuel as you buy except that the only way government can give out the money is infrastructure hence the infrastructure listing on the SURE document and the sharing of the funds to the LGAs.
Some Nigerians have argued that they don't trust their states and LGAs but my perspective is that we also dont trust the federal government, but people are closer to their states and LGAs and it is easier to harrass your LGAs for accountability than to harrass the federal government since we live closer to the people running the LGAs.
Those in remote areas don't need to start travelling to Abuja for answers to their immediate complains If the LGAs are collecting money monthly.
As regards timing, If this was done 10yrs ago, by now most of us won’t be working where we work at the moment. Maybe we would have been the ones running one of the new companies If we understood the opportunities in time.
Also regarding time, we seem to be telling the gvernment that transformation should start after one(1) yr or that we should grow slowly.
So when we say Government should negotiate, we are saying we are not ready for massive progress right now.
I admire the likes of Occupy Nigeria, Campaign for Democracy, NLC but I tell people to ask every NGO for their policies on education, economy, politics etc before joining them in any campaign rally be it pro or anti.
They should rather tell the senate to cut down their salaries by 75% instead of telling the federal government to revert to N65.
Another thing the NGOs could ask for is Tax recovery. Had to give you the "Like" |
