APC Backs Fuel Subsidy Removal
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has officially given its backing to the removal of fuel subsidy.
The party gave its nod to fuel subsidy removal after President Muhammadu Buhari, presented the 2016 budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly yesterday.
The party’s national Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun in a statement signed by the party’s Assistant Director of Publicity, Edegbe Odemwingie, in Abuja stated that the eventual removal of fuel subsidy is inevitable.
Oyegun said, “the gradual removal of subsidy is necessary in view of emerging and current realities”.
Speaking before a delegation of the APC National Coalition for Peace and Mobilization (NACOPEAM) who paid him a courtesy visit at the National Secretariat of the party, Oyegun stated that the current administration inherited an “infected system of subsidy” run by corrupt cartels. “In one way or the other, subsidy must go”, said Oyegun.
According to him, a situation where government spends almost a trillion Naira yearly on the corruption-tainted subsidy regime is unacceptable and can no longer be sustained.
He said, “oil cartels and their cronies resisting change have continued to blackmail and sabotage government on the issue of subsidy, a development that has resulted in the lingering nationwide fuel scarcities despite serious government efforts”.
He described the fuel scarcities the country grapples with as a “national disgrace”
Odigie-Oyegun said there is need to restructure the country’s oil and gas sector which has been marred by corruption and inefficiencies.
He supported the directives of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s to the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to adjust its pricing template to reflect competitive and market driven components may not necessarily result in increase in the pump price of petrol.
According to him, the presidential directive to the PPPRA will result in a more efficient and realistic pricing system for petroleum products and also result in constant availability of fuel.
The statement captured that earlier, the NACOPEAM National President, Comrade Ahmed Saleh said the fuel scarcities impacted negatively on the Party.
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