Cosmas Ekpunobi
8 February 2005
Abuja — FEDERAL Government yesterday blamed the 36 state governors for the likely negative impact of the emerging fuel price hike spurred by the restoration of the N1 per litre Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), saying the latter (states) allegedly refused to pay about N400 million required to purchase distribution vehicles.
With the N1 PEF back in place, feeling is high in the country that fuel prices are shortly to rise.
Asserting that it had okayed the restoration of the PEF tax, Sen. Ibrahim Mantu, chairman of government's palliatives committee, said at a stakeholders' meeting in Abuja yesterday that any harsh effects from the expected fuel price hike should be blamed on the governors.
According to him, one of the recommendations to cushion the harsh effects of fuel price increase was for states to provide money to buy vehicles to take fuel every where, particularly to the North and East.
He said it was sad to note that the governors had not paid the (between) N200 million and N400 million counterpart funding for the purchase of the approved numbers of commercial vehicles to transport fuel to all parts of the country efficiently and so cushion the effects of the price hike on the people.
Minister of Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the deputy Senate president said, had told the committee yesterday that the Federal Government had provided its counterpart funding and that the state governors had allegedly failed to play their own role.
Senator Mantu explained that the equalisation fund was specifically introduced to create a uniform fuel pump price.
He, however, noted that the fuel tanker owners had asked the Federal Government to consider the cost of transporting the product (fuel) from Lagos to some other parts of the country, especially the North and Eastern parts, following which government, through the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) restored the N1 per litre.
The chairman explained that the committee and the PPPRA only agreed on N49 per litre of fuel as a base line, suggesting the current price variation.
Said he: "When we agreed with PPPRA to bring down the price of fuel to N49 per litre, it was then a base line because some people (haulage sector) are saying that they should add the cost of transportation from Lagos to other parts of the North."
But, president of Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, dismissed the equalisation fund as official fraud, even as he said that the fund is not being provided by the Federal Government but paid by Nigerians on any litre of fuel bought.
The NLC chairman who was at the Mantu-led committee meeting yesterday, said it was big fraud for the government to compel Nigerians to pay N1 extra on a litre of fuel as equalisation fund and the benefit of such does not get to the targetted people.
You cannot use the name of the North or the East to appropriate billion of naira and yet the people in the North, East and even in Abuja would not enjoy the subsidy and this is not paid by government but people's subsidised fund," he said.
According to him, government has to ensure that people in the North and East enjoy the benefit of the subsidy.
"This theft and fraud has to stop and this is why we are here," he stated.
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