| YOUR LETTERS
What manner of subsidy?
Since the introduction
of oil subsidy in the
70’s, the Federal Government has continued to subsidize the prices of petroleum products to the total neglect of other sectors of the economy. Monies that should have been invested in the provision and expansion of infrastructural facilities are put back to subsidising consumption in the downstream petroleum sub-sector.
Is it not high time government de-emphasizes the use of money realised from oil to subsidize the same product? Is it not time we tell ourselves the bitter truth in order to move our country forward economically and otherwise?
We must realise that oil subsidy, as sweet as it seems, does more harm than good to the Nigerian masses and the economy generally. The benefits we enjoy today are superficial, cursory, shallow, and should not be mistaken as real.
Subsidising petroleum products had led to contradiction in economic planning and has brought about shortfall in basic funds for other national development programmes.
Educationally, oil subsidy has turned our institutions of learning into poultry farms. The health sector is in a comatose due to the continuous re-investment of oil profits to oil subsidy. Our hospitals are mere cockroach infested care centres, simply because the money realised from our God-given ‘resources is put back to subsidising the same product.
Agriculture which used to be the bedrock of our economy prior to the emergence of oil in the 50’s has been abandoned and forgotten. We import basically everything-great, thanks to the recent ban on imported food. With agriculture, five percent of US. population produces food for the entire nation. Nigeria should borrow a leaf from this by re-investing the money from oil subsidy into agriculture. Is it true that the country loses a whooping sum of N500 million daily to oil subsidy through thw NNPC? If we multiply N500 million naira by 365 days, we know what that can do, if properly invested in the health or education sector.
Reforms generally are desirable when the benefits outweigh the costs. The immediate benefits of withdrawal of subsidy will include among others, reduced smuggling activities, sensitivity to inefficiency and wastage in handling petroleum products.
The removal of subsidy therefore, will maximise benefits for majority of Nigerians through the provision of improved education, health, agriculture, portable water, electricity, transportation etc. These monies will turn them around for the betterment of the masses of this great country.
Ada Oprah writes from Asokoro Abuja.
NEXT...
|
|
