KEROSINE: TIMES WHEN MARKET FORCES HELP.

Looking at Nigeria's forex stranglehold today and the need to resort to more efficient scarce resource allocation, it is a wonder that there can still be any help from market forces in today's Nigeria.
A very popular one is the market for telecommunications products and services. None can contest now that it was good for government to hands off that industry when it did.
A less popular one happens to be electricity generation and distribution. Although the hands off is still having its teething problems, none could contest the fact that the distribution companies are striving to be service providers to valuable customers as against old PHCN perception that the customer was a helpless beggar.
Now Nigeria is entering another tricky phase of the recourse to market forces. Kerosine, government says, will sell at a non-subsidised N83 per litre henceforth as against previously subsidised N50 per litre.
It is doubtful if any Nigerian will raise issues with the new recommended price because hitherto, none actually bought it for recommended N50 per litre without help from armed men standing by. In fact, many gladly bought at N100 per litre or more and consequently, for months it has been hard to hear of kerosine scarcity.
So, how win-win for all stakeholders is the new kerosine price template? Will it guarantee supply and no queues at filling stations? Above all, in the event of market abuse, who can enforce the new template?
By law, it is the job of the department of petroleum resources to be the industry's policeman but of course, that it is just a department now speaks volume.
Time was when it was more autonomous but that era died fast because it was not in the interest of another set of powerful parasites for the industry to be effectively policed. Yet, the need for a more effective petroleum inspectorate agency grows by the day given inadequate information on actual production and exports; the temptation to hoard once there is sign of scarcity and marketers experience at loading depots quite apart from pipeline vandalization
and smuggling of both crude oil and finished petroleum products to neighbouring countries.
There is need to set up a special force perhaps made up of men from existing forces, to police the all important oil industry in Nigeria and ensure everything in it is not only official but also, in the interest of Nigeria and the host communities.

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