 Welcome once again to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Our first major conversation for today is going to be talking about Nigeria's Petro-Sopsidy regime. Of course, news reports reaching us say that the country has spent about 1 trillion Naira on petrol subsidy in just 10 months. This morning we are speaking with Mr. Kayode Kundaio, who is the publisher of Energy Times. Good morning, thanks for joining us Mr. Kundaio. Good morning sir. I'm happy to join you, group. Absolutely, and compliments of the season. Yeah, same to you sir. Alright, so it sounds very very shocking, you know, seeing figures like that spent on petrol subsidy in just 10 months. And I believe that every Nigerian should be worried, you know, at a report like that. But quickly share with us, you know, just a quick breakdown of why Nigeria is paying that much to subsidize petrol. Okay, thank you. Let me first of all tell you, state clearly that Nigeria is not in a stock with the spending. During the Jonathan regime, we spent almost 2 trillion on fuel subsidy. This one for 10 months is not to me, it's not so high. And if you remember during Jonathan era, we have a challenge of increase, you know, fake receipt, billing that is not even on the street, you know, you remember the court cases had immediately after he left. So this time, I don't know, pays this amount to me, it's not that high. But let me say this, Nigeria will continue to pay for subsidy. Did the next, when we have full functional refinery, can you hear me? Yes, yes, go ahead please. Yes, Nigeria will continue to pay for subsidy until when we have fully functional refinery. The one different argument is saying they are going to increase the fuel price by June, the next year, in just a drama, trying to sensitize Nigeria to see whether they will contest or there will be a reaction. We are not likely to have, if government increase the price in just a normal increase in price, that is not the regulation. Not until when we have fully functional refinery, we will continue to subsidize. And let me tell you, the dangote refinery, the fraud government is looking up to to come out. They are not likely to fulfill that regulation, the regulations that the government is looking at. When we say deregulation, we have a system where we have different type of refinery coming up to compete with each other. In a situation when just a single refinery coming up on stream to feed the nation, it is no longer a competitive environment. It is now a monopoly system. We are the same government, we continue to feed the price, to feed for the owner of the refinery or the management of the refinery. Now, if they are saying that they are going to deregulate for the masses, which masses are they deregulating for? So, on what, on whose purpose the refineries have not been working for the last 15 years, or for the last 13 years when a lot of money have been pumped into this system? The fraud government has spent so much money, almost five trillion era has been spent on revamping the nation's refinery in the last 10 years. Yet, nothing has come up from it. Every government comes with a different idea of siphoning money and telling us that they want to revive the refinery. All the four nations refineries, none of them is functioning. Remember the one in Jonathan, we spent so much on refineries, nothing happened. Now, this government came, we've been spending so much money since past seven years now. Nothing has come up. On whose benefit the fraud government is saying they want to deregulate this sector? On whose benefit we are suffering? The Niger government will continue to spend so much money on subsidy, on to when we have the function that I said earlier, refineries. Yes, we have small, small refineries coming up. There are small, small refineries and they have never made any part we are expecting. Yes, a number of refineries will come up in the coming years, including that go-to refinery, which all the petitioner needs, that it's going to feed the country. It definitely is not going to feed the country alone. The owner of the refinery is looking outside the country to make his money. And if we have functionary refineries, maybe we have maybe cardinal, protocol, you know, protocol, we have one in worry. Now, if all these refineries come up, definitely, yeah, we can say we want to deregulate because there will be a subsidized price at that time. When you remove the cost of transportation, you remove the cost of land and cost. And Nigerian Port Authority and all those things. You will see that there will be competitive environment. That's how they will come up. Yes. Now, when you still want to deregulate at that time, you will all be happy that, yes, we are ready to deregulate there. Sir, right now, Nigeria is not ready. So Mr. Kondayo, so I want you to go further on the point that you made that claims by the Nigerian government that they are deregulating and they are ending the subsidy regime are all fake. Yes. It's all fake. And I don't know why government always come up with this noise of deregulation. I think when I started journalism 25 years ago, I started at the peak of campaigning for deregulation. I can tell you that since then, nothing has happened. We keep on. Mr. Kondayo, can you hear? Increase the price by a little margin. And this one too, we come to increase the price by a little margin. And that will be the end of no deregulation. You remember the one different argument did, which was partial deregulation. The market brought it to this idea. They really brought it to it. They were starting importing. All of a sudden, we now discover that only electricity is importing. Is that deregulation? After they have to increase the price. Taking that market down, we're going through it. Only to discover that they are asking the... All right. And you won't... Where does it happen? So these are the challenges they are facing. And we are not ready. I keep on saying, all these things that you are seeing, they are flagging up that they want to increase price to $0.50 or $0.50. It's just the fate. Just to make sure that they increase the price. That's what they want to hear, the reaction of Nigeria. They have already learned. All right. Let's also talk about some of the issues that you have raised. You talked about the fact that we have... Because we can continue this way. Nigeria is a tyrant. If we want to... I am saying there won't be any deregulation until we are functionally binary. The government will continue to go front and back. We can't deregulate on importation. We pay on this thing for 30 years. Nothing has happened. We keep on pumping money to compete. We keep on pumping money to the fanatic. Nothing has happened. If you remember before that, the funder established the fanatic. Do you remember? The one that was under the government. Ote Dolan and Ote Dolan, they meshed together to buy the cardinal fanatic. When you pass the token, you thought that... When you passed the token, you remember under the government, Ote Dolan and Ote Dolan, they meshed together. They wanted to buy cardinal fanatic. When you are working, you thought of this thing. And you wanted the old plan. We can't go dancing. That won't happen. If not, we have to get in the girls and go to the fanatic. We can't go to the fanatic. But at the same time, if they have a long private, it is a good one. Or a private entity to acquire this fanatic. Possibly you could have been on the street today. Okay, so let's talk about... Mr. Kondayo. They privatized this company. And that's not a big company. Sales are something equity. Mr. Kondayo. Sales are... Mr. Kondayo, let's talk about some of the issues that you have raised. You are saying that we are where we are today because our refineries are not functioning. And until we fix our refineries, then we will continue in this cycle. Do you have an idea why our refineries are not functioning despite all of the funds that we have invested in revamping the refineries? Profitized beaches. The beaches. In fact, it is a useless system that has never happened in any country in the world where a system is privatized and is free to work. Mr. Kondayo. Mr. Kondayo, can you hear us? Mr. Kondayo, can you hear us? Look at how these costs are relying, taking money from several bank companies. I don't know if I... I'm sorry to use this. There's nothing that can be done successfully in this country. Mr. Kondayo. Because we pay for the expenses. Mr. Kondayo. We privatize this school. We privatize generation companies. We privatize other entities in the power sector. Yet, we have not achieved the desired results. Mr. Kondayo, can you hear us? They don't have money. They keep on going to... All right. It might be a struggle having this conversation this morning. Calle de Kondayo. Can you hear us clearly? All right. You know, it's obvious that he has a lots to get off his chest. Of course. Maybe it's the issue that he can hear us about. Because this is not the first time, like I mentioned, we're talking about, you know, the removal of failed subsidy or not to remove or how much we're spending, you know, subsidizing fuel for Nigerians and, you know, the questions still ongoing. Others would say, are we really subsidizing fuel? Who are we subsidizing fuel for? There are a few and all of that. So some of the issues that he's mentioned and he said, until we solve all of this problem we will continue in this cycle and that's the issue of having our refineries. It doesn't make a lot of sense. You can't really stop paying subsidies if you don't have refineries to refine the petrol down here because if you're refining crude oil down here, the crude oil without your refineries will still have to go to other countries to get refined and brought back to Nigeria and you know that's not even going to be possible that's you know you then will stop paying something if not you know the petrol cost will go as high as 350,000 to 500,000 but they know that they're not going to do that and so they every now and then just throw those you know the words here. They know that they need to get the refineries working or they don't know maybe they don't know that they need to get the refineries working before removing you know the stock. Can you hear us now? Yeah, I can hear you. I don't even know that I'm off already. Yes, we were trying to get your attention. I think we had some form of disconnection but quickly you mentioned that you know until we the only way we can get out of where we are right now as a country is that we have our refineries working functional. Now my question is how come the refineries are not functional? You've also said that a lot has been invested in terms of revamping the refineries the ones that are available so what could be responsible? Why are our refineries not functional? The reason why the refineries are not working is because Nigeria has not taken it as a business and I keep on telling those who ask me the question that until we privatize Nigeria we won't have anything to come out of it. Have visited the refineries or the refineries we have in Nigeria that is the protocols, the worry, the cardinal have visited them the way it was being wrong. There's no privacy can be wrong and so far in that format until Gomez sell the equity in the half, possibly 60-40. Hello? Yes, go ahead please. We can hear you. Possibly 60-40. I've been confessing for this thing for the last 10 years until we have that kind of system. Nigeria refineries will keep on being this format and Gomez will continue to start funding money and people will continue to feed fat from this format. We have. I just did this one. I remember when I was so young, 200 million was given to TOTA to execute protocol refineries. We found it at that time. At that period nothing came out. Alright. Mr. Agandayo. Bassenjo came, put in the same money, came out. Gomez came, put in the same money, nothing happened. Buari came now, put in the same money, bringing expatriates from abroad, Ajib, all sorts of expatriates, engineers to come and do something to revitalize and still having the same problem. Not until we privatize the Nigeria refinery. We keep on having the same problem. Okay. Mr. Agandayo, I want to ask, because of course the news is saying that the government plans to give 5,000 Naira to the poorest Nigerians and then go ahead with completely removing subsidy and that's their plan and that's the way that's been stated in the news. But I want your thoughts on, if they go ahead and actually stop paying subsidy, what do you think would happen and what would be the likely cost of petrol for Nigerians? Sure. Let me first of all say the talk about the 5,000 Naira and what you give to Nigeria. Is there any sort of Nigeria that for how long are they going to spend 5,000? What will 5,000 pay? It's totally an resort to Nigeria. That's my personal opinion. Now, if you give me 5,000 Naira today, it can't take me to the evening when I finish spending it. Is that what we take me for the next one year or two years when another one will come up? Is that a strategy? Whoever must have suggested that, I don't know what the thinking of government. Now, I want to ask you just an example. When during COVID, government was distributing money to some people. We journalists, we like to investigate those who actually got this money and didn't see anybody to say he collected 5,000 Naira. Now, to me, it's another way of certainly money from the system to small click of government to eat. Now, that money may not make any part in anything. And when you calculate how much it's likely to spend on that 5,000 Naira, and we're talking about 3 billion of Naira, whereby if we even use that billion to build a small micro-refinery to make an effort, a 10,000 per refinery to the cost 1 billion dollars. Now, all this money we've been spending, wasting, on reviving all these things. If government doesn't want to release any equity, we will have built a new refinery since past 10 years. A 10,000 Naira per day refinery costs 1 billion dollars. That we say we can't afford 1 billion dollars since all this year. Now, by the time they give 5,000 Naira to the individual, they will build it up on the fair price. Now, by the time they build it on fair price, government says they want to increase it to 3,000 Naira per litre. Now, on what benefit will they now benefit? Even the masses, they are protecting. How many they are protecting? What benefit will they bring out for them? What impact will they make in their life? To me, it's a waste of money, a waste of time, and they are including the different masses. That they are so poor, they can afford 5,000 Naira in a year. When I heard the news, I was so bitter. After I got my proposed 5,000 Naira to how many Nigerians? To how many Nigerians? They said the poorest. How did they determine the poorest? The people in the village? Or people in Lagos? It sounds very much... It sounds very much... It sounds very much like the same format of looking for new excuses to siphone funds from the Nigerian economy without any actually effect. They started giving them money from the system to certain people to come richer. Absolutely. They started giving them money for the past 30 years to siphone money when they are paying for the regulation. They want to start again to collect money to siphone to people. I grown up to know... Hello? Hello? Apologies, but we may have to wrap up the conversation here. There is obviously so much that needs to be said with regards to this conversation and the idea of petrol subsidy. We look forward to speaking with you again and we would like to get further details from you and more clarity on Nigeria's petrol subsidy. We may want to call it fraud as it sounds from what you have described. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a very interesting day. Stay with us, move away from petrol. Now we're going to be talking healthcare in the face of a pandemic and many other health challenges in Nigeria. How much more development is needed and where are we currently? We'll get into that after this break.