There is another scarcity on the horizon.
On Thursday, 25 June, SEPLAT MD, Austin Avuru admitted the nation was simply unable to pay for the subsidy, He revealed this at a forum tagged “Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)/ Bloomberg CEO Roundtable: Banking and Oil Industries”
Group Managing Director/ CEO, First Bank Plc, Olabisi Onasanya, noted that the country’s over-dependent on oil has led to a situation where 18 states can’t pay salaries. He, however, expressed confidence that the situation could still be salvaged.
“We have an opportunity to rebuild our economy and all we need to do is to diversify and move away from depending on oil. Actions need to be taken; people don’t believe us when we say we can defend the naira; there has to be adjustment in the value of naira,” he said.
“Let us increase the rate of interest and reduce our dependence on oil,” he added.
At this point, the nation simply can’t handle the subsidies anymore and they must be removed. This subsidy issue is now the main course on the President’s plate. In a private email made available to YNaija, certain financial experts have revealed that the subsidy removal will also stop illegal petrol trade with neighboring nations. Apparently, the petrol that gets imported into our country is sold to neighboring countries.
The scarcity is currently being held off by a group of oil companies unable to repay their debts to the Government. The alleged companies are Taleveras, Atlantic Energy, Sahara Group, Duke Oil and Aiteo. It is rumored that these companies owe money that was not remitted to NNPC from crude oil swap programme and Offshore Processing Agreements (OPAs) contracts executed in the past. These indebted companies are currently importing petrol to pay off their debt.
Eventually these debts will be paid and the Government will be unable pay marketers. The scarcity will then be upon us.
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