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原文原文 / Original TextIn the end, PREMIUM TIMES believes that the most important question regarding the financing of this scheme is not whether the finance ministry pays immediately. It is whether the policy creates a cost that someone must eventually bear.
At its core, what was requested of the Nigerian economy by the Tinubu administration's main reform initiatives was to distinguish between the removal of an unsustainable subsidy and the creation of a genuinely competitive, efficient downstream petroleum market. One positive from the finance minister, Taiwo Oyedele's press briefing on "Fuel Prices and the Subsidy Question," was to recognise that although these are related objectives, they are not the same thing.
The briefing's most consequential proposal, the negotiated ceiling of ₦1,350 per litre on the ex-gantry or landing cost of petrol, highlights the importance of this distinction for Nigeria's reform agenda and public finances.
The federal government intends under the arrangement described at the minister's briefing that where petrol costs exceed this ceiling, refiners and importers will bear the ensuing shortfall and later offset this loss when costs ease. The choice of nomenclature is unimportant at this point, even though the government would rather the arrangement be described as "price smoothing", and not "subsidy" or "price control". Instead, the key question is whether this is a genuine inter-temporal price smoo
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At first reading, the mechanism resembles a form of deferred cost recovery where the supplier is certain to recover the shortfall under an enforceable, transparent arrangement. However, where future price declines are not enough, recovery is delayed indefinitely, or the government later compensates suppliers, the arrangement acquires a different economic character. At which point it becomes a quasi-subsidy, a regulatory transfer, or an implicit charge on the treasury.
This is why the government would need to answer the following questions: how will the regulatory mechanism to determine the eligible cost and verify the shortfall work? Does the supplier earn interest on deferred amounts? What happens if international costs remain high for an extended period or in the event of exchange rate shocks? Can suppliers recover the accumulated amount if prices never fall enough?
Does the arrangement apply equally to Dangote refinery, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), and independent importers? What happens if a supplier refuses to participate or reduces supply because its working capital is tied up? Is there a cap on the total amount that can accumulate?
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来源：AllAfrica (https://allafrica.com/)
原文链接：https://allafrica.com/stories/202610120132.html
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