PENGASSAN Seeks Improved Access to Forex
* Calls for fiscal, monetary policy harmonisation
Ugo Aliogo
Worried about the recent developments in the downstream sector and the myriads of issues plaguing the Nigerian economy, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, (PENGASSAN) has stated that the non-availability of forex was largely responsible for the recent fuel scarcity experienced in the country.
The union said stakeholders in the supply and distribution value-chain of the industry should take urgent steps and double their efforts to put an end incessant queues for fuel in order to ensure that citizens pay the approved price of petrol in all parts of the country.
PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, said this during a media briefing in Lagos, on the state of the economy.
He attributed the fuel scarcity to the non-availability of forex while urging the CBN to stabilise the exchange rate and work towards fiscal and monetary policy harmony.
According to him, the margin between the official exchange and the parallel market continues to widen as manufacturers continuously patronise the foreign exchange speculators thereby increasing cost of production.
Osifo advised the federal government to remove all barriers in forms of taxes and levies from the importation of petroleum products.
“Although the increase in the price of crude oil in the international market is partly responsible for the surge, from our findings, the non-availability of foreign exchange (FX) at Central Bank of Nigeria rate to marketers is largely responsible for the increase as they source FX from the parallel market.
“This is without prejudice to the activities of unscrupulous marketers that are bent on milking Nigerians dry while he called for the Nigeria Liquefied and Natural Gas and other gas producers to be mandated to focus more on domestic gas production.
“Efforts should be intensified to fast-track the current rate of rehabilitation of the nation’s four refineries to guarantee energy security; while on the short term, make FX available to the importers at the official rate.
“Should this abnormality and distortion continue, it has the ability to drive the country into another round of recession and further impoverish the already battered citizens,” Osifo said.
Speaking on the increased electricity tariffs amidst the drop in power generation, Osifo affirmed that the Disco staff had deliberately frustrated the attempt by consumers to acquire prepaid meters such that they engage in the old practices that encourage fraud.
He decried that after so many years of unbundling the Power Holding Company of Nigeria(PHCN), Nigerians were yet to feel the impact of the legions of companies created out of it. Instead the citizens are subjected to serial grid collapse and total blackouts.
Osifo called on the federal government to immediately review the privatisation of power generating companies and the distribution companies that was carried out in 2014 as the operating companies have become more of a burden to the nation.
“As a matter of urgency the power sector must be unbundled and power generation transmission and distribution should be removed from the exclusive list to the concurrent list in the Nigeria constitution,” he averred.
