Mele Kyari, group managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) shocked Nigerians last week with what he flaunted as Nigeria’s daily petrol consumption figure.
Kyari who called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other law enforcement agencies to join hands in the campaign to rescue Nigeria from the merciless grip of petrol smugglers, lamented that daily petrol consumption for May 2021 surged to 102 million liters, up from 93 million in April.
While putting Nigeria’s actual daily consumption at 60 million liters, he implicitly blamed smugglers for ferrying 42 million liters daily into Nigeria’s four tiny western and northern neighbours along with Ghana.
Nigeria is a strange country where government officials fight over petrol consumption figures apparently because of subsidy fraud.
On February 25, 2020 Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the regulatory arm of NNPC announced publicly that Nigeria consumes 38, 200, 000 liters of petrol daily. Timipre Sylver, minister of state for petroleum resources promptly countered that Nigeria consumes 55 million liters of petrol daily.
Everyone knows who to believe among the two warring factions. DPR figure tallies with what the international petroleum community presents for Nigeria. Being the regulator of the industry, DPR figure is grounded on empirical evidence. The minister’s figure is a tepid defence of NNPC’s deviousness.
While announcing the outrageous consumption figure for May, Kyari was curiously silent on Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) unpatriotic service to the nation by opening the nation’s border gates to smugglers who haul Nigeria’s subsidized imported petrol to its neighbours.
He did not even mention the NCS as one of the government agencies to join hands in the fight against the smuggling of subsidized imported petrol to Benin, Togo, Ghana, Niger and Chad republics.
NNPC’s petrol consumption figure has become so deceitful that even the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) is now openly contesting it as something the corporation uses to rob the federation account of huge sums of money.
Kayode Fayemi, Ekiti state governor who doubles as NGF chairman is convinced that NNPC knows those who smuggle petrol to Nigeria’s impoverished tiny neighbours and might be collaborating with the saboteurs.
The truth is that Nigeria has three fundamental enemies when it comes to petrol smuggling and subsidy fraud. NNPC is the country’s greatest enemy. It swindles Nigeria of hundreds of billions of naira through inflated consumption figures.
The NCS is the second enemy. Its officials open Nigeria’s border gates to smugglers at a fee. The smugglers themselves are the third enemy.
NNPC inflicts the greatest harm on Nigeria with its fictitious consumption figure on petrol. The smugglers may on daily basis be hauling anything from 3 million liters of petrol into the territories of Nigeria’s tiny neighbours.
NNPC on the other hand swindles Nigeria of billions of naira daily by deducting import bills on 42 million liters of petrol that never landed the shores of Nigeria. That is in addition to daily subsidy on 22 million liters not consumed in Nigeria.
At the current landing cost of petrol which is well over N210 per liter, NNPC may be swindling the federation account to the tune of N6 billion daily.
Everyone knows that besides Nigeria, the whole of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) cannot consume 42 million liters of petrol in a day. Ironically, NNPC claims that the 42 million liters of petrol is smuggled into only four tiny impoverished countries and Ghana.
Out of the five countries, only Ghana consumes something close to seven million liters in a day. Benin, Togo, Niger and Chad put together cannot consume 10 million liters in a day. Daily supply of 42 million liters of petrol would simply flood the five countries. Besides, Niger is not only self-sufficient in refined petroleum products, it exports its excess to Nigeria.
NNPC has reduced Nigeria to an object of international ridicule by telling the world that it does not even know how to cover up its deviousness.
Conversely, NGF knows that Nigeria consumes 38, 200, 000 liters of petrol daily and that NNPC’s figures are fraudulent. However, it cowers when it comes to pressuring the federal government to force NNPC to stop disgracing Nigeria with transparent lies about petrol consumption figures.
Instead, NGF spinelessly adopts the Nigerian politician’s trademark blame-shifting approach. The forum wants the federal government to raise petrol price to N403 per liter to discourage smuggling by pricing Nigerian petrol above the average pump price in the five countries listed by NNPC as benefiting from Nigeria’s imported subsidized petrol.
We condemn NGF’s plan to visit the sins of NNPC, smugglers and NCS on 207 million innocent Nigerians through arbitrarily fixed petrol pump price.
The blame-shifting would only worsen Nigeria’s spiraling inflation while NNPC quietly pockets the import cost of almost 30 million liters of petrol daily, along with subsidy for the unconsumed product.
We demand an end to petrol subsidy fraud by NNPC. The corporation’s scandalous petrol consumption figure is enough fraud to drive foreign investors from Nigeria. If NGF cannot trust trade figures from a leading government monopoly, then no foreign investor would touch Nigeria even with a 10-foot pole.
NNPC’s petrol consumption figure is scandalously indefensible. It stands logic on its head. We reject it in its entirety.
SOURCE: independent.ng