BIG STORY

Petrol Landing Cost Now N180 Per Litre, Says Kachikwu

Published

4 years ago

April 17, 2019

The landing cost of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, is N35 higher than the pump price of N145 per litre, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, said on Tuesday.

Kachikwu said the rise in global crude oil prices after the 2016 hike in petrol price brought back subsidy.

Recalling the experience of 2016, when the government increased petrol price from N86.5 to N145 after months of severe scarcity, he described fuel subsidy as an emotive issue.

“You have very positive argument that says, ‘Why is this happening; let’s get it out.’ Once you do it, the streets get flooded by protesters. You have five or six or 10 days of no activity in the country. So, any attempt to remove the subsidy must be very well-managed,” the minister said on the NTA Good Morning Nigeria programme, monitored by our correspondent.

He noted that in 2016, the government wrote to the Nigeria Labour Congress and all the trade unions, adding that meetings were held with the security apparatus.

Kachikwu said, “Even when there was a consensus on how we were going to do it, we still had an issue at the very tail end of the moment; NUPENG and PENGASSAN supported but, of course, the other members of the trade unions pulled out.

“Eventually, thankfully, Nigerians saw through what we were trying to do and let it happen. And thank God that happened at the time because when you look at the gap today, the landing cost is about N180 per litre and sale price is N145. Imagine if it (pump price) was N90-something; we will literally be a bankrupt country.”

The minister added, “The point I am making is that anything you are going to do on subsidy requires a very efficient management of information – getting everybody who are stakeholders to tie into it.

“Should we deal with the removal of subsidy? I was gung-ho when I assumed this position that there was no way I was going to tolerate a subsidy regime at the time in 2015 of about N1.2tn-N1.3tn. There was just no way; we didn’t have the capacity to continue to pay.”

“So, I convinced the President that this needed to happen; thankfully, he listened, he agreed and we did. Now, we then had over-recovery period for quite a while and then we went into this upswing in prices that has now taken us again into under-recovery.”

The minister noted that the government had not paid marketers all the outstanding subsidy arrears.

He said, “I think, first and foremost, we need to find a way of fixing refineries quickly, whether it is government-funded or whatever – my preference is always private sector funding.

“I think the labour union has never really said they would not be supportive of an attempt to take away this subsidy element; the union has always said, ‘If you are doing it, show me what you [will] do with those new receipts of income. Two, what do you do with the refineries?’ Therefore, we need to address those to even get their buy-in.

“Secondly, we need to segregate between those who need subsidy and those who don’t; you will find that 80 per cent or more of those who get subsidy today do not need it. There is nothing necessarily bad with some element of subsidy if it is well-managed and is very little, and if the private sector can take it away completely; that is fantastic. That is the most ideal situation.”

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which has been the sole importer of petrol into the country for about two years after private oil marketers withdrew from the importation of the product, bears the burden of subsidising the product.

As of March 20, 2018, when the international benchmark price for oil (Brent) was around $66 per barrel, the expected open market price of petrol, according to data obtained from the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, was around N189 per litre. The agency has not released any data since then.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, on December 23, 2017, said the Federal Government had been resisting intense pressure to increase the pump price of petrol, noting that the landing cost of the commodity was N171.4 per litre as of December 22, 2017 when oil price was around $64 per barrel.

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BIG STORY

Runaway Nigerian Nurse Arrested In Lagos, Extradited To US For Trial Over Fraud

Published

5 mins ago

March 24, 2023

PorscheClassy News

A convicted Nigerian fugitive, Florence Enwerim Onyegbu, was on Thursday, extradited to the United States of America, where she is wanted to answer to criminal charges bordering on the violation of the U.S. law involving the offer and payment of illegal remuneration in a health care matter.

Onyegbu‘s extradition was coordinated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, following a request by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI, seeking assistance for her apprehension.

The EFCC said its investigations revealed that she had changed her name from Florence E. Onyegbu to Janet Boi in an attempt to remain hidden.

But that she however ran out of luck when operatives of the EFCC swooped on her at her residence in the Ojodu area of Lagos on February 21, 2022.

The anti-graft agency said that upon her arrest, a national identity card with the name Janet Boi as well as a Texas driver’s license with the name Florence Enwerim Onyegbu were found on her.

The Commission, on March 22, 2023, handed over Onyegbu to the FBI, following an extradition order granted by Justice Z.B. Abubakar of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on December 2, 2022.

It will be recalled that Onyegbu’s travails began after she was arrested on February 12, 2011 in the U.S. and subsequently sentenced to 46 months imprisonment, following a guilty plea , over the violation of the U.S. law bordering on the offer and payment of illegal remuneration in a health care matter.

Although she was ordered to report for service of her sentence on April 4, 2011, she failed to surrender on that date.

Consequently, she was further charged with failure to surrender for service of sentence in violation of U.S. Law on March 4, 2013.

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BIG STORY

JUST IN: CBN Directs Banks To Open On Saturday, Sunday

Published

6 hours ago

March 24, 2023

PorscheClassy News

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed the evacuation of banknotes from its vaults to commercial banks across the country as part of a coordinated effort to ease the circulation of banknotes of various denominations.

The CBN has also directed all commercial banks to open for operation on Saturdays and Sundays.

The Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department of the CBN, Isa AbdulMumin, disclosed this in Abuja, on Friday, stating that a substantial amount of money, in various denominations, had been received by the commercial banks for onward circulation to their respective customers.

According to him, the CBN had directed all banks to load their Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) as well as conduct physical operations in the banking halls through the weekends.

“Branches of commercial banks will operate on Saturdays and Sundays to attend to customers’ cash needs,” he noted, adding that the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, would personally lead teams to monitor the level of compliance by the banks in various locations across the country.

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to be patient as the current situation would ease soon with the injection of more banknotes into circulation.

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BIG STORY

CJN Olukayode Ariwoola Returns to Nigeria After Medical Check-Up In London

Published

7 hours ago

March 24, 2023

PorscheClassy News

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, has reportedly returned to Nigeria after seeking medical attention in London, the United Kingdom.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and an ally of the Supreme Court head, Ahmed Raji, made this known in a statement on Thursday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

Raji disclosed that Justice Ariwoola went to London on Saturday for his routine medical check-up and returned to the country on Thursday morning.

He also described the reports that the CJN was sighted in London in a wheelchair, purportedly planning to meet with the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as false and aimed at tarnishing the image of the apex court and the chief justice.

Raji, therefore, urged Nigerians to resist the attempts by politicians to paint the judiciary as bad so as to achieve their selfish interests.

He said: “It is in the news since Tuesday evening that Tinubu was traveling to Europe for medical reasons as well as for lesser hajj, further reports indicated that he is in France to meet with his medical doctor, why would somebody now link that to the CJN that has left Nigeria for the UK since Saturday to observe his own medical session and just came back today (Thursday) as a meeting?

“Our politicians need to allow due process to take control, election matters are in the law courts, but that does not mean that the law Lords will not live their normal lives as human beings, Tinubu is in France and the CJN was in London, where is the contact?“

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