LAGOS – The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) on Wednesday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari to focus on a deregulation policy based on local production rather than importation.
PENGASSAN gave the advice in a statement signed by its Public Relations Officer, Mr Emmanuel Ojugbana, in Lagos on Wedenesday.
The statement said that if local refining was not increased to meet local demand, especially for petrol, removing subsidy would bring more hardship on Nigerians.
“Removing subsidy while the country depends on importation of refined products will make prices of refined petroleum products to be out of the reach of the masses and cause inflation,’’ it said.
PENGASSAN said that its position on deregulation was that importation of refined petroleum products was a major drain on the nation’s revenue.
“Importation of refined petroleum products is also putting the naira under undue pressure and creating problems for the economy.
This is unacceptable to PENGASSAN.
“Abrupt removal of fuel subsidy will create chaos that may ground the economy.
“PENGASSAN calls for well-coordinated measures with timeline to achieve self-sufficiency in local refining as a means of proffering acceptable steps to end fuel subsidy’’.
The statement added that both the government and operators in oil industry had always yearned to promote competition and efficiency.
It added, however, that they often failed to assure on how to enhance local refining capacity to contain local demand.
“Government is thus persistently confronted with import parity pricing and the burden of subsidising the imported fuel instead of locally refined products.
“We oppose the petroleum products importation regime, which is rent seeking and indeed a drain devise that is inimical to our economic and social empowerment’’.
The statement said that retention of the state-owned refineries was in the best interest of the nation and for economic security.
President Mohammedu Buhari
