President
Muhammadu Buhari, Monday in Abuja said that his government
may not remove the petroleum subsidy, stating that the reasons so far
canvassed for its removal did not sound plausible.He added that the
absence of subsidy will have adverse effect on the poor and jobless
Nigerians.
Speaking
after receiving a briefing from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources,
the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies
in the oil sector, President Buhari said that he will carefully
review all the submissions he had received on the need to remove the
subsidies.
“I
have received many literature on the need to remove subsidies, but
much of it has no depth.
“When
you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effect of
triggering price rises on transportation, food and rents. That
is for those who earn salaries, but there are many who are jobless
and will be affected by it,” he said.
According to
the president, what impeded transparency in the oil sector may not be
the subsidy but lack of security, sabotage, vandalism, corruption and
mismanagement.
He however
promised to deal decisively with all identified problems of the oil
and gas sector.
“We
have to go back to the good old days of transparency and
accountability,” the President said .
A statement
by his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu
stated that “President Buhari directed the NNPC to review
existing agreements for the swapping of crude oil for refined
products with a view to injecting more honesty and transparency into
the process to reduce costs”, even as he also “asked the NNPC
management to do more to improve the supply of liquefied petroleum
Gas (cooking gas).”
Vanguard
