The Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari has said Nigeria’s proposed plan to remove fuel subsidies will reduce the country’s fuel consumption.
The CEO disclosed this at the Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers Association (PENGASSAN) Energy and Labour summit held in Abuja.
According to Mele Kyari, the current fuel consumption in the country will reduce when there’s less need for excess consumption of the commodity and that will happen when prices are deregulated.
He said when the subsidy is removed, people will buy only as much as they need, and including that, individuals with more than one car might decide to park some, which in turn would reduce excess and the real level of consumption would be ascertained.
Kyari said, “What will happen is that there will be no further motivation for cross-border smuggling and more than anything even the marketing companies will not have enough resources to go to the depots to buy. And when it comes to the fuel stations, some of you who have two cars will eventually have to park one. This is bound to happen. It is very natural.
“Then we will come down to the real level of consumption which is that people will only buy what they need. Today we buy what we don’t need and it is very difficult to stop it,” he added.
The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Orji-Ogbonnaya Orji, said fuel subsidy removal needs to happen for the economic bondage to be reduced, adding that it would benefit the poor majority and might hurt the rich minority who are getting immensely rich from the subsidy transactions.
It should be recalled that last month Investors King reported that the Federal Government plans to end fuel subsidies in 2023 after the end of the Buhari administration in May 2023.