Petrol Station. |
Finance
Minister Zainab Ahmed yesterday reiterated government’s resolve not to remove
fuel subsidy. She made the emphasis against the backdrop of long queues
emerging at some filling stations amid the fear that a removal was imminent.
Mrs.
Ahmed spoke during a joint briefing with Governor of the Central Bank of
Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele and Minister of Budget and National Planning
Udoma Udo Udoma on the sidelines of the 2019 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings in
Washington DC.
“There
is no plan to remove subsidy now because we have not yet found an alternative
package to subsidy. We will not remove subsidy without another social safety
net package,” the minister said.
She
noted: “One of the issues that always comes up in the report, especially by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a corporate body, is how we handle fuel
subsidy. In principle, the IMF is saying fuel subsidies are better removed, so
that you can use the resources for other important sectors. In principle, that
is a fact. But in Nigeria, we don’t have plans to remove fuel subsidy at this
time because we have not yet designed buffers that can enable us to remove fuel
subsidy and provide cushions for our people.
So, there is no plan to remove
subsidy. We will be discussing with various groups. If we have to, what are the
alternatives? We have not yet found viable alternatives. So, we are not yet at
the point of removing fuel subsidy. Therefore, every rumour on plans to remove
subsidy should be discarded.”
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