In a statement issued by the group’s Executive Secretary, Comrade Ikpa Isaac in Abuja, which was obtained by DAILY POST, he said the removal of the subsidy would put a lasting end to the incessant fuel crisis, which had put the nation and innocent citizens at the mercy of a certain cabal.
He said: “Different revelations have emerged of massive fraud in the fuel subsidy process, trillions of naira are alleged to have been fraudulently stolen from the government purse in the name of fuel subsidy payments. It is heart rendering to discover that the country is bleeding on the side despite its already anaemic financial status”.
Ikpa was optimistic that deregulation of the downstream sector would open up the sector to private investors who were unwilling to invest in the past due to government’s interference and put an end to fuel cabals that have held the nation bound for long.
Part of advantages the statement pointed out, were availability of fuel, springing of petrochemical industries for employment generation as well as reduction of pressures on local currency, even as demands for FOREX for importation of Fuel would have been reduced as well.
The group further maintained that the revolution in telecommunication sector as a result deregulation was a good experiment, emphasising that liberalisation of oil sectors by the present administration was set to boost the economy yet again.
“Nigeria in the last five years has consistently spent over 1 trillion naira, that is about $5b USD annually on petrol subsidies; same country that spent less than 20 billion naira on roads in the year 2015, but spent over 1 trillion naira on petrol subsidies in the same year is unacceptable”, it maintained.
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