The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, says that it is clear that it is not possible to remove the subsidy for petroleum derivatives due to some impediments.
He said this during a meeting with Senate President Ahmad Lawan on Monday in Abuja on the planned removal of government oil product subsidies.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Ms. Zainab Ahmed, was present at the meeting.
According to Timipre, it is clear that it is not possible at this time for the government to withdraw the subsidy.
“It is not within the contemplation now, of this administration, to eliminate the subsidy, but of course, if there are legislative enablers that ensure that it is within the law, then I think it is a legislative responsibility.
“The elimination of subsidies will not happen. When a law is passed, a law is not set in stone. By implementing the law, you now come to some impediments to implementation.
“Now we feel like we need to address those impediments because before the subsidy is removed, there are certain things that need to be put in place to protect people.
“We feel we need some time to be able to put everything in place so that when the subsidy is removed, it will have minimal impact on people,” the minister said.
Chief Timipre Sylva speaks about fuel subsidies
In his comments, Lawan criticized the timing of the planned removal of the subsidies.
He said that, to the extent that the administration and management of oil product subsidies were flawed, the government led by President Muhammadu Buhari believed that sufficient planning should be carried out before their eventual removal.
He said: “The position of everyone in government today is that indeed the administration and management of subsidies is flawed for many reasons.
“It is true that the burden is enormous and massive and at a given moment it is necessary to eliminate the subsidy.
“Even though our economy is growing, we are still challenged to make things better for our people.
“Many of us in this administration believe that the subsidy removal issue needs to be handled very carefully, especially that there needs to be sufficient planning.”
Lawan appealed to the Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to stop their planned protest against the proposed removal of the fuel subsidy.
The president of the Senate said the measure was unnecessary.
“I take this opportunity to appeal to the TUC and the NLC to drop this strike or demonstration plan, it is totally unnecessary.
“There will be no subsidy elimination; so there is no need for this. Please don’t create unnecessary tension where there shouldn’t be any,” he said.
Fice Minister Ahmed said that the Federal Government made provisions for the fuel subsidy in the 2022 Budget, from January to June.
Elimination of fuel subsidy: NLC plans a national protest on February 1
According to her, all fuel subsidy payments would ordinarily cease as of July 2022.
He said that in view of the “problematic” timing, the government decided not to go ahead with removing the subsidy in July, particularly in the context of the results of the ongoing consultations.
He added that the federal government was exploring alternatives to premium motor gasoline, as well as pushing to increase the country’s crude oil refining capacity.
The Nigerian News Agency reports that the unions had planned to hold a protest from January 27 over the planned removal of the subsidies.
Source: NAN
