Gbenro Adesina
The Federal Government has revealed the main reason why it has fully removed the fuel subsidy in Nigeria pointing out that the removal would earn the country ₦1trn annually as well as creating an avenue to create huge job opportunities.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, who revealed this today in Abuja noted that from October, the nation could now convert cars using petroleum to gas that was cheaper.
His words, “It is time for Nigerians to face reality and do the right thing. What is deregulation going to do? It is going to free up a lot more money. At least from the very beginning, it will save us up to a trillion and more every year. Already, we have taken up the budgetary provision for subsidy which is about N500 billion in the budget. Also, we have taken off the excess forex price that special rate that was given to NNPC which also came at a cost. So, all the money that we used to defend the naira at that time to subsidise the dollar will now be freed up for development. I believe that this discussion around subsidy has been a vexed issue that has captured the imagination of this country for a long time now”.
“The problem around deregulation is that people must understand first that the product we are talking about is a derivative of crude oil. It is refined from crude oil. Therefore, it has a direct relationship with the price of crude oil. If the price of crude oil goes up, then you expect that it would reflect in the price of the derivative. So, the best time to achieve this is the time when crude oil prices are low so that Nigerians will get the benefit of those low prices”.
