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FUEL SCARCITY: Nigerian Airlines give 3 days to shut down, want rights to import jet fuel

Published

2 years ago

March 15, 2022

The effect of recent fuel scarcity in Nigeria is hitting harder on citizens of the West African country as its airline operators on Monday said they have only three more days to fly due to the high cost of aviation fuel.

The scarcity began in the first week of February 2022 when the Nigerian government says it found an unsafe quantity of methanol in Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) imported into the country, and cited that as the reason for fuel shortage that has led to hard times for many Nigerians.

One of the airline operators, Mr Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, who spoke on behalf of the operators, said at a public hearing of ad hoc committee of the lower chamber of Nigeria’s legislature, the House of Representatives. The committee is investigating the scarcity of aviation fuel in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

Slamreportafrica.com reported last week the price of diesel has hit a record high at ₦625 per litre in filling stations after it jumped from ₦ 430 to ₦545 two days earlier. The product was sold for as low as ₦ 420 two weeks ago.

Diesel currently sells for ₦720 at the deports, the price is as high as ₦800 at some filling station in the country.

Onyema accused aviation fuel marketers of not speaking the truth about the actual landing cost of aviation fuel, adding that if drastic measures were not taken, the least air ticket would go for as high as N120,000.

He urged the House of Reps to give operators of airlines the license to import aviation fuel, saying this would reduce the unnecessary burden on the citizenry.

“What we are asking from the government is to give us the right to import aviation fuel. What others use in insuring one plane is what we use in insuring three planes in Nigeria, so the Nigeria airline is dead on arrival,” he said.

The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd, Mr Mele Kyari, said that it would consider granting licenses to operators of airlines to import aviation fuel.

Kyari also agreed that aviation fuel would now be sold at N500 per litre contrary to the current N670 per litre.

Meanwhile, Mr Ugbugo Ukoha, the Executive Director for Distribution System for Storage and Retailing Infrastructure in the Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Regulatory Authority, said that Nigeria had an excess supply of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK).

He said the country had sufficient products that could go round, adding that the scarcity and the high cost remained the marketers’ challenge.

Committee reactions…

Hon. Ahmed Wase, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Reps, said that the committee was only after the fact, as it was poised to protect the interest of Nigerians.

“We are not willing to compromise what is in the interest of our country,” he said.

He, however, chided the marketers for speaking the language they did not understand in order to cover up some facts.

According to him, the marketers’ analyses are not correct based on the fact at the committee’s disposal.

He also queried why some government agencies would not be telling the truth about the scarcity and the high cost of aviation fuel, saying “we should be seen to protect the interest of Nigeria and not otherwise”.

He said that the committee would ensure that the right thing was done in the interest of the country, adding that the basic tenet of governance remained the welfare of the people.

Hon. Toby Okechukwu, the Minority leader of the House, however, raised questions on what determined the marketers prices and why they were hoarding the product.

Okechukwu said that such actions by marketers were bringing a lot of dysfunction to the country’s economy.

“If we are saying that the landing cost of aviation fuel is N450 from the Central Bank of Nigeria who approved it,” he said.

He also accused the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Ltd. of not knowing those managing the products.

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Nigeria’s finance ministry unveils system to monitor tax exemptions

Published

2 hours ago

April 16, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance has unveiled the Incentive Monitoring and Evaluation Platform (IMEP), a cutting-edge computer system meant to make it easier to keep an eye on the tax costs connected to import duty exemption certificates.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, said it was part of a larger plan to cut down on tax spending and make sure that fiscal policies were helping the country’s economy grow.

Edun said the IMEP was meant to change how the Federal Ministry of Finance figures out how much the tax breaks for businesses, non-governmental organizations, and foreign groups affect the economy.

Since President Bola Tinubu took office, Nigeria’s government has been trying to change the country’s fiscal and monetary policies. This has led to bold moves by both the central bank and the tax advisory committee run by Taiwo Oyedele.

Edun said the ministry wanted to improve the monitoring and review of these exemptions by putting in place a strong automated tool. He talked about how the IMEP has many useful features, such as a mechanism for clawing back duties, electronic report generation, a central database for tracking, factory geo-location tagging, industry qualification status validation, integration with many government agencies, and sending demand notices to people who don’t pay their taxes.

“One of the critical objectives of the IMEP is to provide a framework that will prevent ineligible applicants from receiving tax benefits, enforce compliance with fiscal policy measures, and offer a comprehensive analysis of the economic impact of tax incentives.

“By doing so, the ministry hopes to curb the misuse of tax expenditures, support the realisation of economic outcomes from fiscal incentives, and enhance the direct measurement of tax incentives’ effects on the economy,” he noted.

Edun says the system is meant to give a framework to checkmate and limit applicants who aren’t qualified, make sure that strict fiscal policy measures are followed, and give a strong analysis of how tax incentives affect the economy.

“Overall, the introduction of the IMEP represents a significant step towards reducing the cost of tax expenditure and ensuring that tax incentives have a positive impact on the Nigerian economy. This initiative is part of the government’s commitment to fostering transparency, accountability, and efficiency in the management of the nation’s resources,” he explained.

In December, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) said it granted three years of tax exemption to 34 companies in 2023.

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Nigeria’s inflation hits 28-year high of 33.20%

Published

1 day ago

April 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The recent gains of Nigeria’s Naira as the best-performing currency worldwide in the last month have had little or no impact on the consumer price index in the West African country as its inflation rate reached a 28-year high of 33.20%.

According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation has continued its 15-month-a-row surge driven by soaring food and energy costs despite the central bank’s rate hikes aimed at halting its ascent.

This was 10.37% more than the 21.9% inflation rate seen in March 2023. Year-over-year, rural inflation was 31.45% in March 2024. Rural inflation fell from 2.9% in February 2024 to 2.87 % in March 2024, which was a 0.20 percentage point drop from February 2024.

It went up by 5.71% points from March 2023 to March 2024, when it was 19.79%. The average rural inflation rate for the twelve months finishing in March 2024 was 25.50%.

Food prices went up by 40.1% a year in March 2024, which was 15.56 percentage points more than the rate of 24.45% a year earlier. The statistics office said food and non-alcoholic beverages were the biggest contributors to the pickup in inflation. Food inflation rose to 40.01% year-on-year, from 37.92% a month earlier.

Since President Bola Tinubu ended an expensive gasoline subsidy and devalued the naira twice in his first year in office, price pressures have grown. To get the economy off of subsidies that have hurt the government’s finances, the government recently raised energy rates for people who use the most electricity.