An Economist, Prof. Evans Osabuohien, has appealed to Federal Government to make concerted efforts to resuscitate the nation’s refineries, to reduce ripple effects of the hike in petrol price on the masses.
Osabuohien, who is also Head, Department of Economics, Covenant University, Ota, made the appeal while speaking with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Ota, Ogun.
He spoke against the backdrop of the announcement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPCL), that the pump price of petrol had been adjusted to between N580 and N617 per litre.
NAN reports that the NNPCL, on Tuesday announced that the pump price of petrol would be sold between N580 and N617 per litre due to response to market realities.
Osabuohien noted that the devaluation of Naira and floating of exchange rate was part of the factors responsible for the new pump price of petrol.
“If the nation is exporting, that would have made our goods cheapter and the country would have a competitive market, but we imported much, which has a double tragedy on the exchange rate.
“In addition, the nation exports petrol products and in return, brings refined products into the country, thus having ripple effects on the economy.” he said.
The economist urged the Federal Government to urgently put the nation’s refineries in good condition so that the double effects of importing refined petrol product could be drastically reduced.
Osabuohien emphasised the need to urgently formulate policies and fashion palliative measures that would cushion the huge effects of hike of petrol price on Nigerians.
He said that the Federal Government needed to set thing in motion so that the nation could begin to refine its petroleum products locally, instead of importing finished products into the country.
The economist said that the impacts were so much because those that imported refined products into the county needed to translate it to naira equivalent.
Osabuohien added that if the country had not been importing refined products, the effects would not have been much on the economy.
He said that the Federal Government needed to put back part of the subsidy removal into economy to ameliorate the ripple effects on the people