Marketers disagree with Tinubu’s tax adviser on refineries sale

The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said Nigerians should pray that the country’s refineries do not work.

Oyedele, who spoke at The Platform’s Independence Anniversary event, held in Lagos on Monday, said should Nigerian refineries produce petroleum, inefficiencies in the management might make a litre of petrol the most expensive in the world.

“Nigerians would say if only our refineries were working, then we’ll be fine. Nothing can be farther from the truth than that. In fact, Nigerians should come together and say please make sure that our refineries don’t work. We should sell them.

“The National Assembly said we have spent over N10tn maintaining our refineries even when they have not produced anything,” Oyedele said during the event tagged ‘Africa Rising Continent – Nigeria’s Strategic Role’.

“If Nigerian refineries process crude oil, unless we deal with our inefficiency, one litre of petrol will be the most expensive in the world. You would have succeeded in replacing the subsidy at the pump with subsidy of the refineries,” he added.

Delivering his speech titled ‘Making Nigeria the springboard for Africa through sound economic policies and responsible citizenship,’ the chairman said, “What is our vision? What is the Nigerian dream? Even I had to Google it, and when I did, I really couldn’t find anything.

“The closest thing I found was in the recent document called Agenda 2050, which was developed by the immediate past administration, it has the vision, the mission, and it has objectives.”

Speaking on policies that can help reform the economy, he said the naira redesign policy of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government went wrong.

“I know most people remember monetary policies and if not for anything, the recent naira redesign reminded all of us how bad things can get when you get just one policy wrong.

“Sometimes it’s not just about the economy, activities, values and financial losses but about lives which are irreplaceable,” he said.

He identified industrial policy, environmental and energy policies, among eight others, as policies that could help reform the economy.

He said, “When the fuel subsidy was removed, the pump price of PMS went up by 200 per cent. Do you know what happened? Traffic in Lagos disappeared. One of the reasons it disappeared was because a lot of people could no longer maintain buying fuel to be on the road and they parked their cars.

“Do you think those are the upper-class people? No. The upper-class people will just complain briefly and they’ll pay and still move on. They drove exactly as they drove before and after the removal. The lower and middle-class people who had Tokunbo (imported) used cars – those cars break down regularly, and they visit the vulcanisers regularly and the mechanic.

“Since those people are parking their vehicles at home, the vulcaniser is not finding jobs to do; so is the mechanic. It’s not just the vulcaniser, the apprentices and the family they support – life has become impossible, but we all agree it’s a necessary policy. But we need to react and respond in a way that is robust enough so we can take some of those pains off our people.”

Reacting to the sale of refineries’ comments, the National Controller, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mike Osatuyi, said it was best the country had its own refineries

“The government that wants the refineries to work knows what they are doing. Having our own refineries guarantees energy security and would also create more jobs.

“You can’t control what you don’t own. So, it is good for us to have our own. The cost of importing petrol is now very high. I think government is moving in the right direction by making the refineries work very soon,” he said.

Also speaking on the issue, the Director-General, Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, Wale Oyerinde, said the refineries should be sold.

“That has been our position, we have refineries that have not been running profitably for years now, it doesn’t make sense to keep pumping money into something we can’t handle.

“The government should transparently sell it off to Nigerians and let an average Nigerian who wants to buy into it do that and the government keeps a limited share of it. It has not worked before so why are we keeping it? I don’t know why Nigerians are sentimental about it.

“It should be sold to individuals who can run it as a business and then the government will play the role of a regulator rather than continue pumping money into it. It has been our position, the government should transparently sell it off to Nigerians or private individuals or experts that can run it.” Oyerinde said.

On his part, the Chairman, Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Niyi Yusuf, said, “The private sector has proven over time its ability to efficiently optimise assets for the benefits of all stakeholders.

“We have seen this in banking, telecoms, broadcasting, entertainment and other sectors where public assets have been transparently handed over to reputable private managers.

“Underperforming assets such as refineries should be privatised to allow private sector bring in needed capital, technology, technical capacity and management knowhow so these assets can stop draining public budget and consumers can start to benefit from their products and services.

“More than half of our population have not witnessed our refineries work at optimal capacity. Its about time we try new strategy and privatisation is a proven model” he said.