The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) says accelerated domestic refining and processing of petroleum products would end the unstable petroleum pricing in the country, Dr Muda Yusuf, Director-General of the Chamber, said in an interview with NAN recently in Lagos. He explained that this action was necessary to prevent both the deregulation policy from being derailed and a return to a subsidy regime fraught with corrupt practices.
Yusuf also called for a competitive market framework to enable the deregulation achieve positive impact, saying that quick approval of domestic refinery operations would boost access to petroleum products for economic development. The LCCI DG blamed NNPC’s monopolistic supply structure for the inability of Nigerians and the economy to benefit from the positives of deregulation.
Yusuf stressed that government needs to urgently put appropriate structures in place to ensure a level playing field and for the deregulation regime to achieve its objectives, because private sector players were strapped for foreign exchange to import petroleum products, while the refineries remained comatose.
“A deregulated pricing regime is typically volatile, oscillating with global oil price. However, deregulation without competition would not give desired outcomes”, Yusuf said, adding, “We are still immersed in a monopolistic structure even as we claim to have deregulated the petroleum downstream sector”.
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