Funny Country – Frank Ofili

We say subsidy is gone, but we are still paying subsidy, never mind that we are doing so in secret. In an opaque way!

Funny country!

The essence of subsidy is for affordability and availability of the product in question – PMS in our case.

But now, we are (secretly) subsidising and the product is neither affordable nor available.

Our government keeps churning out disingenuous stories and we accept them. Strange people we are!

Let’s be clear. The economic logic of subsidy removal in our case is not lost on anyone. Even the gwugwuru and epa seller or my precious nkwobi curator understands that. So why the lie?

Now we are in a funny situation. Officially, no subsidy payments. Officially, only NNPCL imports PMS. We know the landing cost per litre is far higher than we are paying at the filling stations. NNPCL calls the difference “shortfall”. At other times, they call it “under-recoveries”.

But we know what it truly is. It is subsidy, pure and simple.

Not that anything is fundamentally wrong with subsidy. No country on earth that does not do one subsidy or the other.

The problem with ours is that a smokescreen of lies and corruption has been erected around it over the years.

And so we find ourselves importing what we have in abundance. And subsidising it too!

Let me not bring in the Dangote imbroglio. Since at governmental level we cannot manage what we have for the benefit of the people, we ought to support a local venture that has provided a solution to the gap left by government.

But here is why we can’t.

A part of our raw ingredient (crude oil) has been mortgaged for loan for a good number of years to come. In other words, we have today given up our future revenue opportunities just to access loan today.

And trust me, that loan would be consumed, not put in regenerative ventures. You want to bet?

But crude-for-loan is only one part of it, perhaps a small part. There is also crude-for-contract. They call it swap deal. In swap deal we pay for capital project with our precious crude. Thus, again, foreclosing a part of our future revenue opportunities

Still, we may still not be unable to supply Dangote and Co even as we are not meeting our OPEC quota for reasons too numerous to mention here, top of which is moribund oil infrastructure.

Whatever internal flaws Dangote refineries has, they must not be used as excuse to frustrate it. We must look beyond the flaws to the strategic importance of the project to the nation.

The point is that whatever little we have left is also stolen and taken abroad to the refineries owned by those who manage our affairs. These same people would arrest and prosecute their local ‘competitors’ in the creeks whom they have tagged illegal refiners.

All things considered, it seems that Dangote refineries and other local modular refineries as well as “illegal crude refiners” in the creeks of the Niger Delta are all classified as local competitors, and so must be frustrated so that crude flow to the foreign-based refineries must be guaranteed. If not, why would the local (artisanal) “illegal refiners” not brought under some form of official regulatory framework with standards, safety procedures and expectations prescribed for them?

From what one has read so far however, Dangote refineries sure do have its own internal flaws. But whatever the flaws are, I do not think they should be used as excuse to frustrate it. We must look beyond the flaws to the strategic importance of the project to the nation regardless of whether Aliko Dangote himself has been a government baby enjoying enormous government patronage and protection all these years.