Economy

Subsidy Removal as Restructuring Strategy By Comr. Ola Tunde

Published

9 years ago

May 11, 2016

Subsidy withdrawal is a far-reaching restructuring strategy. It tackles existence of distortions in the Nigerian Economy. This country, or any other, cannot survive alone in a globalized cashless economy in the new age of globalization. You may subsidize agriculture but not fuel because it has far-reaching negative effect on stratification of society, which is vital for spiritual harmony aside from creating soft money for the smart and privileged people, this time the retired Generals, who could buy up the privatized institutions.
The result is that subsidy money goes into unproductive side of the economy encouraging the production of pure water billionaires like those rated from Nigeria by Forbes. These people are opportunists who end up sponsoring Militants, Boko Haram, and Sharia with their profits while the majority wallows below 2 dollars a day.

What subsidy does to Nigeria is to create an imbalance in the economy allowing everyone to go into bunkering, raising private armies, jetty ownership, private jets and every other endeavor antecedent to it. They build private refineries in foreign countries employing as much as 20, 000 foreigners while our own refineries remain less competitive going by the subsidy we pay outsiders. It explains why Nigerians have developed the economies of neighboring African countries where electricity is more stable because it helps to sustain their refineries so they could smuggle in the products or sell to us at high prices thereby requiring higher and higher subsidies, most of the fuel stations are selling above #150 per litre even before now.

Last year alone Government paid about a quarter of the subsidies and by this year was expected to double last years cost. Yet we sink ever deeper and foreign investors stay away. Our suffering is to reform in our collective ways of living so we depend less on what is inherently a wrong way of living forced upon us by our past rulers.

I will like to submit by saying it is a bitter pill that Nigerians need to swallow, and I strongly believe the ‪#‎350b‬ social intervention fund will reduce the burden. PMB will never fail! Nigeria will never fail!!