No palliatives, no fuel subsidy removal - Kachikwu

Answering questions from Senators when he appeared before them, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu who noted that there will be no removal of subsidy until palliatives were put in place, disclosed that with the non-passage of Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, Nigeria was losing 15 billion dollars yearly, adding that the Federal Government has no plans to reduce the price of fuel.

Kachikwu who disclosed that plans were on to distribute free cylinders to every home with gas stations closer to homes, said that over 40 percent of what NNPC makes is used by the corporation, adding, “in the next one, two days, you find that individuals will open their stations and products are there. We have enough storage in this country that will last us for the next 40, 50 days.

“First of all, let me say that one of the things I’ve said to myself since resuming as GMD of NNPC is that I will not be constrained by the lack of PIB in making sure that holistic solutions to the industry continue to be propelled. So, using existing laws, we have continued to make changes.

Because at the end of the day, whether or not PIB is available and passed, it really doesn’t lie within the umbrella of the executive, it lies with this revered Assembly. But I also do not think that the problem with PIB has been the facts of the versions. By the time the last Senate was rounding off, it had gotten a version that was clearly the version that both houses were looking at. Am I going to create a new version? Not really. What I will need to do is take the version that you have, look at it again and make changes.

“The key issue is that as long as we continue to want to pass a holistic PIB, it is going to be a very major challenge. But once you begin to break it up into critical aspects, you begin to make a faster run to passing PIB. Fiscal regime, for example, you ask yourself, why would you want to have fiscal regime inside the PIB? Because to change those fiscal regimes, which are very dynamic environment, you have to come back to this Assembly to also make changes.

“You must find a way of pulling out fiscal regimes and leave them to existing tax laws which you can amend. And additionally, look at the PSCs and Joint Venture Agreements to enable you determine fiscal regimes. The advantage in that is that you have the flexibility of changing with the times.

“At the time when oil prices was so low that nobody was willing to invest in your country, you may give some incentives. At the time when they are so high that people are making outrageous profits, you may increase your taxes. But so long as you leave it in a holistic blue-barrelled, high voluminous PIB, you are stuck in terms of how you are going to get the required votes each time to make amendment. I think the way to go is, first of all, take what is there, look at it in the context of where we are today.”