Fuel price: Temporary intervention not return of subsidy, says Dr. Muda Yusuf

By Oluwayanmife Lucas

Economic policy group and economist yesterday lent their support to the federal government’s decision to implement a temporary fuel price relief. They warned that this relief should not be misconstrued as return of subsidy on petroleum products, but be seen as a priority by government to protect vulnerable citizens, preserve the sustainability of public finances and maintain the integrity of ongoing economic reforms.

Besides, they warned that the commercial status of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) Limited does not eliminate the government’s responsibility to respond to exceptional public-interest considerations.

NNPC Ltd., the group maintained, remains a government-owned commercial enterprise with a diversified portfolio of petroleum-related businesses, whose commercial mandate should ordinarily guide its operations. However, the policy group argued, temporary and clearly defined public-interest interventions can be accommodated within an appropriate governance framework.

The Group, Center for the promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), a policy and economic think-tank group, in a chat with The Trust News, argued that the critical consideration is that such interventions must be transparent, proportionate, time-bound and financially sustainable.

The CPPE further noted that the current global energy crisis demands pragmatic policy responses, not ideological rigidity. It further argued that although economic reforms must remain sustainable, but they must also be responsive to the welfare of the people.

Therefore, it explained, Nigeria does not need a return to the “fiscally destructive” subsidy regime, but a credible framework for temporary, targeted and transparent social protection during exceptional economic shocks.

Speaking with The Trust News, the Chief Executive Officer, CPPE, Dr. Muda Yusuf, explained that economic policies are instruments for promoting citizens’ welfare; hence, they should not become rigid doctrines that prevent governments from responding to exceptional social and economic difficulties.

He noted that the current escalation in petroleum product prices is driven principally by developments in the global energy market, particularly geopolitical tensions that have pushed crude oil prices above $100 per barrel. He described this as an “external shock affecting both oil-producing and oil-importing economies; it is neither a consequence of Nigeria’s subsidy removal policy nor peculiar to the Nigerian economy.”

Dr. Yusuf warned against the misconception that the Federal Government’s recent fuel price relief initiative through the NNPC is a reversal of the petroleum subsidy removal policy. Such an interpretation, he argued, is misleading and fails to distinguish between a fundamental policy reversal and a temporary intervention in response to an extraordinary economic shock.

“Extraordinary economic circumstances sometimes require exceptional policy responses. Governments across the world have historically intervened to cushion households and businesses against severe external shocks without abandoning their underlying economic policy frameworks. The COVID-19 pandemic provided compelling evidence of this approach, even in advanced market economies.

“The intervention is substantially different in scale, design and potential fiscal implications from the previous subsidy regime. Its temporary character and limited market coverage are important distinctions,” Dr. Yusuf said.

According to him, the removal of the previous petroleum subsidy was a necessary structural reform, therefore, reinstating a broad-based consumption subsidy would recreate serious fiscal vulnerabilities and undermine the gains from economic reforms.

He explained further: “For illustration, a subsidy of ₦1,000 per litre on national consumption of 50 million litres daily would create a fiscal exposure of approximately ₦50 billion daily; ₦1.5 trillion monthly and ₦18.25 trillion annually. Such an obligation would be fiscally unsustainable, especially in an economy facing substantial infrastructure deficits, debt-service commitments and competing development priorities. However, a limited and temporary intervention should not automatically be interpreted as a deterioration in policy credibility.”

Dr. Yusuf, an economist, explained that investors are principally concerned about policy predictability, market access, commercial viability, fiscal sustainability and the protection of legitimate investments. These fundamentals, he said, need not be compromised by a narrowly targeted emergency relief measure.

In this regard, the CPPE argued that there is a need to have a critical distinction between the previous subsidy regime and the current intervention. Under the former subsidy arrangement, Dr. Yusuf said, government effectively carried a substantial fiscal burden on nationwide petrol consumption, estimated at various times at between 50 million and 80 million litres daily. This arrangement created enormous fiscal pressures, weakened public finances, crowded out development spending and contributed to macroeconomic instability.

Citing an illustrative calculation based on the volumes contained in the ministerial commentary; by contrast, he said, the current intervention covers approximately 70 million litres of NNPC fuel supply monthly, compared with estimated national petrol consumption of 50 million litres daily and an estimated national monthly consumption of 1.5 billion litres; while NNPC monthly volume under the intervention will be 70 million litres, translating to an estimated national consumption of 4.7 per cent

“Arising from these figures, an intervention covering less than five per cent of estimated national consumption cannot reasonably be equated with a nationwide subsidy regime. More importantly, the intervention does not reinstate an administered national petrol price, impose a general subsidy obligation on private operators or dismantle the market-oriented framework for petroleum product pricing.

“The appropriate questions should therefore concern the fiscal cost, transparency, duration, beneficiaries and effectiveness of the intervention, rather than an inaccurate characterisation of it as a wholesale policy reversal,” Dr. Yusuf argued.

But beyond fuel discounts, the CPPE said there is a need to addressing the wider social costs. It said that while the proposed fuel price relief is a welcome development, its limited coverage means that its aggregate impact on household welfare will also be limited.
Government, the group further highlighted, should pursue broader interventions that address the principal channels through which the energy price shock affects citizens.

In a four-point agenda, the CPPE said the government should scale up affordable mass transit, because transportation is one of the most immediate transmission channels of higher energy prices to household expenditure and business operating costs. To this end, the group said the federal and state governments should prioritise high-capacity buses, including CNG, electric and other economically viable alternatives.

Support for agricultural productivity and food supply, strengthening state and local government interventions by way of states designating discounted fuel outlets, limited emergency fuel allocations for essential services, like subsidised public transport and targeted support for vulnerable households, should be considered, as well as protecting the integrity of petroleum market reforms.

“Government should sustain market-based pricing, fair competition, transparent regulation and a trade policy framework that supports domestic refining investment. Emergency interventions should not become a pretext for arbitrary price controls or the reintroduction of opaque fiscal obligations,” Dr. Yusuf submitted.