Stop Issuing Import Licences For Refined Products, Incentivise Local Refiners – MAN 

The director-general of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Segun Ajayi-Kadir, has called on the federal government to discontinue the issuance of import licenses for refined petroleum products and focus on incentivizing local refining.

Ajayi-Kadir made the call while speaking to newsmen on the patronage of Made-in-Nigeria products and the state of local refining at the press conference ahead of MAN’s 54th Annual General Meeting.

According to him, the government is working with an inter-ministerial committee to create a policy framework for the mandatory patronage of Made-in-Nigeria goods, in line with the President’s directive that priority must be given to products that can be sourced locally.

He said, however, that the continued importation of refined petroleum products despite local refining capacity undermines that policy.

“And you spoke about Dangote Refinery and we are still issuing import licenses. Unfortunately, that is the situation we have and I think you should speak up to discourage it. What we should be asking for is people who will be given licenses to operate refineries here. We cannot be producing crude oil and exporting it, and then ask people to import refined products,” he said.

The MAN DG argued that without Dangote Refinery, the current fuel price situation could have been worse.

“Someone rightly said, assuming we did not have Dangote Refinery, maybe we would be buying fuel at N2,500 now, and what we are having would be child’s play,” he noted.

Ajayi-Kadir proposed that government should engage local refiners, not only Dangote but three to four others that exist and consider subsidizing the price at which crude oil is sold to them, with agreements to moderate domestic pump prices.

“Government can decide to subsidize the price at which crude oil is sold to them and then enter into agreements to moderate the cost domestically. Importation of refined products should be completely discouraged,” he said.

He stressed that it is economically indefensible for a crude oil-producing nation to depend on imports for refined products.

“It is only a non-serious country that will have such huge crude oil resources and still allow itself to import refined products, effectively exporting the jobs that the sector creates and leaving poverty with its people,” he added.