Petroleum importers hesitant to invest money on imports in Nigeria

yinka ogunlami

December 21, 2015 2:21 PM

Importers of petroleum products in Nigeria worrying about investing money on imports to protect their investments from bad debt which may result from the planned removal of subsidy from petroleum products.

On Monday, the Federal Government had disclosed their plans to remove fuel subsidy from next year, as a result of which price of petrol can shoot up from N87 to N97 per litre. However the scarcity of petrol in the country continue to hard the common people with some marketers are selling their products for N120 to as high as N150.

Not only this sudden increase in prices hurting the spending budget of the people, many marketers have also began to attach various condition along with their products which has heightened the consumer woes.

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According to sources, the fuel scarcity would continue to haunt the consumers till 2016 since importers are now becoming more cautious due to planned subsidy removal which is likely to have an effect on their subsidy outstanding. In spite of the government who recently paid N522 billion subsidy claims in the supplementary budgets, marketers still are hesitant of investing money on the third quarter import programmes due to perceived policy inconsistency of the Federal Government.

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The marketers say that the exchange rate differential is still a burden on them which has not been cleared by the government while forex availability is another issue that needs to be addressed. The Federal Government argued that the expenditure in excess of N1 trillion on fuel subsidy in 2015 alone, the 2016 budget deficit would increase.

Motorists and consumer have all urged the Federal Government to address the issue urgently and help the masses from the untold hardship due to this situation. Oil prices are likely to increase next year as supply and demand in begin to even.

yinka ogunlami