…. laments DPK scarcity despite NNPC’s 2.92 billion litres supply

ABUJA – Chairman House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) Mr. Dakuku Peterside has chided the government and the various agencies responsible for the regulation and importation of kerosene in Nigeria blaming them for over N634 billion naira spent on subsidy in 3 years.

According to him The sum account for one third of the country’s capital budget but has been described as funds use to service deep rooted corruption in the downstream petroleum industry.

This is just as he laments that NNPC has supplied about 2.92 billion litres of kerosene to the Nigeria market from September 2012 to August 2013 with an average import of 11 million litres per day.

Arriving at the above figure Hon. Peterside revealed that in the year 2010 Nigeria spent N110, 068,533,988 to subsidise kerosene noting that it is not the cost of kerosene but the cost of subsidising the product alone.

He further lamented that in the year 2011 the situation got worse, as government spent about N324, 089,961,319 on kerosene subsidy stating that in the same year corruption was democratise in the downstream sector.

“There was also some investigation that shows that the downstream sector is entrenched in deep corruption in Nigeria. That year we spent N324, 089,961,319 on kerosene subsidy. In 2012 although we are yet to reconcile this, we spent N200 billion subsidising kerosene.

“And so in three years, we’ve spent N634 billion subsidising kerosene which is one third of what we spend in a year of capital budget.

“We spend not up to 4.5billion on capital budget in a year but in three years we subsidising kerosene we spend more than one third.

“Any Country that spends most of its funds on consumption will not grow, and so that explains why Nigeria is not moving forward. How can we move forward when most of our fund is spent servicing corruption?

“We complain that the roads are not working, somebody will say we should pray about demons that demons are the ones affecting our road. No demon is affecting out roads, we are the ones with the problems of our roads.

“We cry about roads, we cry about one problem but each time we have the opportunity to make money at the expense from those problems. If we have our way, we will buy more bullet proof cars than what we have now. That is the truth.”

He further described the downstream sector as the mother of corruption and fraud stating that it is where corruption begins and ends

He explained that on record, NNPC has supplied about 2.92 billion litres of kerosene to the Nigeria market from September 2012 to August 2013 with an average import of 11 million litres per day.

Despite the huge quantity of importation of the product meant for the masses, Hon.Peterside lamented that there is still a nationwide scarcity of Dual Purpose Kerosene, DPK.

With the persisting problems bedeviling the importation and distribution of kerosene, the House committee Chairman on Petroleum (Downstream) calls for a quick switch to Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG which is cleaner, safer and much readily available.

The lawmaker in his remarks at the 2013 seminar of the Petroleum Downstream Group organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lagos said 27 per cent of Nigerian households use kerosene while 5 per cent use LPG and 6 per cent use charcoal.

He said “This is a recent research, 27 per cent of Nigerian household use kerosene and only 5 per cent account for LPG, 6 per cent use charcoal.

“If there is the availability of kerosene chances are that more people will use kerosene while less will use firewood.

“The first challenge is that the supply of kerosene is regulated. Everywhere in the world where there is monopoly, people are likely to suffer while monopolist always maximise the situation.

“Because NNPC has the monopoly of importing kerosene, what we are suffering today is sad.

“PMS at a time was only imported by one person but it is liberalised today. Because there are many persons importing PMS, there may be gains but because there are 5 to 6 of us are going to the market we are not likely to come back with the same story.

“We are all business men who want to outsmart each other but in the case where NNPC is the sole importer of kerosene, the masses are paying for it.

Because independent marketers, major marketers and the rest are in charge of distribution, this is where the mother of all corruption, the mother of all fraud, the mother of everything bad begins and ends.

“Major marketers are Nigerians, Independent marketers are Nigerians but they maximise this opportunity and make profit for themselves at the expense of the masses.

“In record, NNPC has supplied about 2.92 billion litres of kerosene to the Nigeria market from September 2012 to August 2013 with an average import of 11 million litres per day.

“I don’t know how many of us here goes to the gas station to get kerosene to buy at N50, then the implication of this is that the 11 million litres we import daily develop wings and fly out of our country.

“Is it magic? My answer is No! My guess is as good as yours, somebody is playing games with us, and somebody is playing games with our pocket.

“That is one of the reasons they subsidise kerosene own by all of us. It is not own by anybody or individual called government, it is owned by all of us. And so we have the right to ask the right questions; what is happening?

“As long as our refineries are not working, people will continue to benefit from the subsidy of kerosene. We have done several turn around maintenance on our refineries and yet they are not working and we will still do more turn around maintenance.

“Until we relieve ourselves from that greed to make money at the expense of Nigeria people we won’t move forward.

“There is inefficiency on the part of government and government agencies. There are agencies that regulate kerosene, people import kerosene. It is somebody’s duty to monitor the distribution of kerosene, It is somebody’s duty to ascertain the quantity of kerosene, it is somebody’s function to go to the various filling stations to ensure that the kerosene that was lifted from the depot gets to the gas station.

“And at the gas station, you are forced to sell at N50 after government has paid subsidy, it is somebody’s functions to monitor that too. If the person is not doing that function, the Nigeria people will ask question. But I don’t know how many Nigerians ask question.

“Look at how much we spend to subsidise kerosene and yet you will not find kerosene at the gas stations and nobody is taking blame. As a member of the National Assembly I know that I have your mandate to ask some of those questions and I can assure you that we would ask those questions and very soon we will get everything.

“So all of us, government, government agencies, major marketers, independent marketers; all of us are responsible for the scarcity of kerosene in the country. No one particular person is responsible; all of us are responsible for the scarcity of the product.

“Kerosene subsidy is a network of corruption; it is a network of fraud. So why some people are blaming the fraud on the monopoly of NNPC even when you ask major marketers they will tell you that the monopoly of NNPC is responsibly for what we are going through today to access kerosene.

“This challenge of kerosene distribution has cause a switch to LPG consumption as a better and reliable fuel because that is why I said every decision is made in some context so this issue of kerosene is made in the context of Nigeria.

“Because we have had this problem for a very long time and it just refuse to go away, there is a persistent call for a switch to LPG. It is more affordable and cleaner but it comes with its own abnormalities because of the inefficiency of our system; that is government system, major marketers system, independent marketers system, and regulatory system.

“Because of all these inefficiency and the high cost of subsidy, we are asking for a switch to LPG.