No date yet for take-off, says Maku By Vincent Ikuomo

The Federal Government yesterday said no definite date has been fixed for the removal of petroleum subsidy. This is in contrast to the position of Group Managing Director of Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Austin Oniwon that subsidy ends when next year’s budget goes into operation. Information Minister Labaran Maku said the government is still discussing with various stakeholders and no effective take off date for the removal of subsidy. Maku spoke yesterday at the end of yesterday’s weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the last for this year. With him was the Minister of State, Finance, Yerima Ngama. Said Maku: “No take-off date has been announced. The truth of the matter is our country is in a very difficult economic situation. To continue to run Nigeria with one third of the budget to subsidise one product is absolutely a path to a greater difficulty for the economy. We have continued to talk about this because every sector we opened up has produced results. “People, who are emotionally talking about it, are not actually addressing what we are saying. Let’s take the media; before now, it was only NTA, until government deregulated broadcasting in the country. Before now, you could not set up a private radio station in this country or a television station. When the government deregulated the sector, what do we have today? We have private television stations that are now competing with NTA and FRCN. If government decided to control broadcasting in the country, all of you would have been out of job. “I know we all feel emotional about subsidy. If you look at the movement of economy all over the world, unless we don’t want to develop this country and move forward. In broadcasting we have seen results. So also is the case in cement production, banking, aviation, and telecommunication,” the minister said. Maku argued that the increase in the nation’s domestic debt put at over N500 billion, has made the removal of petroleum subsidy inevitable. He decried Nigeria’s inability to benefit from the sector after 33 years of investments in the oil and gas. Maku said Nigeria is the only country with our level of oil and gas resources that has failed to deregulate the sector and urged Nigerians to bear with the government over its decision to deregulate the sector. Ngama said Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Managing Director Austin Oniwon was merely pushing for the removal of subsidy with his comment that subsidy removal will take off when Budget 2012 implementation begins. He said the FEC decided on the approval of $8.804 million, as payment for the full subscription of 62,000 units of shares allotted to the Federal Government in the Africa Reinsurance Corporation. The council also approved the contract for a pipeline for the supply of gas to the Alaoji power plant and a N2,582,787,557.23 plus $8,216,198.44, equivalent to N3,815,217,323.00 billion plus five per cent VAT of N190,760,866.10