March 06, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s silly decision to continue expending hundreds of billions of naira annually on the wasteful and fraudulent subsidy on petrol scheme makes me fume in anger whenever I realise how much infrastructural development we could have achieved with these funds, with crude presently trading over $110 per barrel as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
I am reliably told that amongst the decision makers on this matter only President Muhammadu Buhari is opposed to the scrapping of this scheme. His reason according to my sources is that the country’s refineries must be operational first before doing away with it. I do not agree with the President on this.
First, the country has no business subsidising what it does not produce. It is just bad economics. Secondly, we all know that the scheme is fraught with fraud. Even the President said this during his campaign in the 2015 presidential election where he was first elected. There is no way we consume more than 10 million liters of petrol daily in the country yet, we are paying subsidies for over 40 million liters daily. This scheme is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated against Nigerians.
President Buhari must immediately make a six months plan to end this fraud. The solution is simple. The government must sit down with labour and CSOs to develop a plan that will see government transfer mass transit buses (150 per state or there about, depending on the population) to the unions free of charge. The unions will operate the buses and charge commuters discounted fares that will cover the cost of maintaining their fleet. This is the kind of subsidy that gets to those who truly need them.
It is heartbreaking that Nigerians are not reaping any benefits from the rising price of crude oil. Such a shame.
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