TheCable

The Buhari campaign organisation says the People’s Democratic Party’s promise to crash petrol price to N90 is laughable, as no supplier of the product will sell at that price.

On Friday, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate, will reduce the cost of premium motor spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, to N97 per litre.

In a statement on Monday, Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the Buhari campaign, said the landing cost of the product is around N205 and it is impossible to sell at a lesser N97.

“At today’s international price of gasoline, no supplier will ever contemplate any scheme that will deliver products at such ridiculous price,” the statement read.

“Those in the sector reading this must be having a good laugh at the opposition. A simple check at the international prices will show that even at the world market where gasoline is procured, it will cost not less than N158 to procure a litre of crude oil. When you add the cost of refining, plus freight, finance and port charges (premium), there is no magic that one would employ to supply the finished product at N145 a litre. Presently, the landing cost of the product in Nigeria hovers around N205 per litre.”

He described the opposition’s claim as an “opportunism of the highest order”.

Making a case for President Muhammadu Buhari, Keyamo added that Nigerians are aware that higher crude oil prices will translate to higher government revenues and a prudent administration will convert the resources to the benefit of the common man.

“This is exactly what President Muhammadu Buhari has done since he mounted the saddle in 2015. The President has worked out a transparent system whereby the whole subsidy regime and scam has been totally eliminated. There is no cash incentive or payment again to middlemen,” the statement read.

He added that what was obtained under the past government was the abuse of the subsidy regime.

“The system under the past Government was that independent marketers and all sort of persons were allowed to import petroleum products on their own, declare non-existent volumes of these products and get paid for these non-existent volumes.

“In addition, government would then pay them cash for the “loses” (subsidy) in selling at fixed market price.

“Under this old system, more than N3trillion was lost. However, when these independent marketers could no longer bring in products due to high prices of crude and make profit at the fixed market price of N145 to a litre, President Buhari refused to further raise the price of petroleum products beyond the N145 per litre.

“The President was also not prepared to go back to the subsidy regime. Therefore, President Buhari stopped the scam of overblown volumes and subsidy payments to middlemen.”