Jumping debt profile, graft-ridden fuel subsidy twin-evil killing Nigeria—NECA
The leadership of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), has refused to be confused into joining the growing bandwagon of economic wishful thinkers spreading the belief that Nigeria’s debt ratio to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is still within allowable limit.
NECA is also against the logic that fuel subsidy is for the interest of all Nigerians, arguing that the regime has become a corruption-ridden draining pipeline of Nigeria’s scare resources.
In an interview, the Director General of the Association, Mr Timothy Olawale, averred that “The increasing debt profile and the corruption-ridden fuel subsidy regime are twin-evils that have clogged the wheel of the nation’s march towards development in the last decade.
“Government should do the needful by immediately putting in place a process and enlightenment machinery that will lead to the deregulation of the downstream oil sector and a deliberate disengagement from the debt burden.
“Like a sore that has refused to heal, the recurrent issue of fuel scarcity has reared up its ugly head again. We are where we are today because despite past sound counsel, government has not been faithful to the deregulation of the PMS market of the downstream sector of the oil and gas.
“Let us ponder and ask ourselves where the non-deregulation of the petroleum sector has led our economy: continued dependence on offshore sources for petroleum products supply, perennial shortage of petroleum products, loss of productive man hours as a result of endless hours spent at filling stations, massive and unimaginable corruptions in the management of the subsidy dispensation.
While stressing that “These are not sustainable,” Olawale recalled that “over the last decade, the country has spent over N9tn on fuel subsidy, about N15.5tn on Capital Expenditure, N2.1tn on Health and about N3.9tn on Education. This is a misplacement of priority and shows that critical developmental items such as education, health and infrastructure have suffered due to the expenditure on fuel subsidy.”
He made it clear that the best for the economy is for the government to rise up to the needful and fully deregulate the downstream petroleum sector to exit the official rip off known as fuel subsidy.
