 Welcome back to the breakfast and plus CV Africa and we look at the lack of clarity on the issue of subsidy removal and we have a public affairs analyst or Larry Waju Suraj on standby who would join the conversation but here's a little bit of it. The Senate president Ahmed Lawan has categorically stated that the president Muhammad Abu Hari had not directed the removal of subsidy now this is against the backdrop where you have civil society organizations planning a protest against the removal of subsidy. We're also told sometime last year that as of the second quarter of 2022 patrol subsidy will be removed and that called for a lot of questioning amongst Nigerians. Some person had asked why subsidy will be removed at a time where there's so much increase in taxes and new tariffs and what have you with the hardship inflation and the list can go on and on. Of course this morning we are going to be looking at what this means for the Nigerian economy I mean what is the impression whether we move from here and should the Nigerian government consider the removal of subsidy this conversation has been going on for a very very long time. It's good to have you join us on the show this morning or Larry Waju Suraj. Good morning. Yes Larry Waju Suraj. Suraj? All right all right Suraj let's go straight to the crux of the matter. How does this make you feel you know the confusion now so you also have the minister for information and culture saying he's going to consult and seek clarification as regards that now we're hearing that the president never directed of course Nigerians are anticipating the removal of your subsidy. And Nigerians are really not anticipating but Nigerians are scared and worried about the plan so called plan for the removal of subsidy as was entered last year by the minister of finance who also said there's been only provision for the four six months of 2022 for subsidy and like you said it is not sufficient for us to just mount the usual rhetorics of talking about removal of subsidy when you say removal it is no reduction what we've been told several years is been about removal so how do you get what is being removed back into the mainstream and also your consideration or operation but what is very clear is that some people are actually just deceiving just the country deceiving the people exploiting the situation and I can't say it is also the fact that we the docility of the people and some of the actors that were expected to take on board really government officials on terms in terms of making the issue clear if for advocacy and engagement it is not just official and it is not possible for anybody to convince you that is what they call the first subsidy because almost year in year out you roll out the volume the alleged volume of consumption and that was also alluded to by the Senate president in his interview after meeting with the president that you know it is questionable that Nigerians are consuming about one million liters of PMS or daily basis I mean that and all the factors are the basis and justification that are used by civil servants and politicians and some of their partners in the private sector to convince the people but at the same time freeze the country of very huge amount of money I mean that's why you had the subsidy case on the junior term that was investigated by EFCC and you see how companies were falsifying documents and multiplying you know fictitious supplies to attract the subsidy and at this stage the first question we want to ask is why is our refineries not working we've had about overnight billion dollars spent on purported you know turnaround maintenance for the refineries in the last over 10 years and you want to ask yourself so what is the return on investment for this investment of the nine point five billion dollars in the refiners it would cost you less to have even built a single refinery to deal with the production and also supply of PMS locally if we remove importation of fuel in this country and that is the irony of it. Nigeria still remains the only producing country that is still engaged in importation of the PMS for local consumption and these leaders are so shameless and irresponsible and proud about it that they continuously talk about you know removal of subsidy and this been the same set of people either in PDP or in APC the moment they're able to recycle themselves then they come back here and then tell you about the subsidy removal and unfortunately our governors are also seriously irresponsible as well and they are so myopic in the little that they get from federal allocation because they're also not accountable to have also raised question about the investment from the federal account money that was meant to go for all the three tiers of government are expended on that you know phantom refinery maintenance and all the rest and customs are not being asked okay but before we get into the details of this conversation let's look at the confusion I mean this is a country we call it Nigeria and it's it's a big brother of Africa that's what we've been called the fact that you have the discrepancy between the you know the national assembly of course the senate president saying that the president did not direct and on the other hand you have the finance minister as a last year hinting and if that was not the case why then do you now have the labor union planning the protest and so you also have the other minister saying so so what does this speak of our country and what does this speak of the leadership of our country especially your government that is bent on improving the economy of this country yeah I mean that don't you at least there's anything that you actually want to associate with this government that is actually been in concert that he has to be consistent on it is in consistency and the lack of organization or coordination in government I mean we've never had it so bad under this government is doing this government that you can see one minister saying a and the other minister will be saying b same issue so that you can take away from this government but the fact remains that the minister of finance and also through the economic council which also involved the governors have been complaining about what they call the subsidy unfortunately the failure like I said of the governors is the fact that they only just want to block the reduction that goes into their federal allocation they are not bothered about the management of the national asset they are not bothered about what has been going on from the joint ownership of their the federation account into NMPC into the payment of salary I mean I have only spoken about the tolerance maintenance it's a different bargain when you look at the salary overhead of of the refineries and what is being spent on them on monthly and annual basis but when we come to the issue the labor already had it so the one headed that the minister of finance said that they were going to remove subsidy and that permitted civil society and and the labor to start the process of consultation there was a meeting in abuja on Monday and there was another meeting in Lagos yesterday where we members of the civil society met with the leadership of the labor to also prepare for a serious showdown with the government in terms of protesting any attempt by the governments to deceive the citizens to increase the hardship of the citizens and also to rub it on our face that we don't also know better than new government is saying and this is what's going to be an opportunity for us to say no this is not how it should be and we will be not unhappy to engage the government in the intellectual discussion on how to move the country forward and that point we have made several and the excuse of claiming that it is the best to be considered in the following exchange rate the increasing cost of of the crude oil are responsible for the so-called remover and we have consistently said no if the incapable of doing which is obvious but political class is actually in the in that conspiracy to ensure that Nigeria does not locally produce his own oil and at the same time continue enriching some of their their selves and also friends from the mystery of having to import fuel from outside the country and I think with the senate president who claimed it well he met with the president and if he could say that the president has not ordered the subsidy remover then the president should also speak out he can be speaking through different mouths and saying contradicting information or government policy I think it is actually not too decent for that to be coming from the president he's suspected that the minister would only speak on the authority of the president or the policy of the government and the senate president who does met with the president he is not expected to have just come out and we represent the president but for whatever it is I think it is an opportunity for the citizens to start the mobilization if the increment is attempted then there should be that showdown that we repeat what happened in the 2012 and if it is not done at least it will provide the opportunity of mobilizing the people Mr. Suraj interesting but but should it be a surprise you know this this apparent confusion or lack of coordination coming from the federal government regarding this issue of fuel subsidy removal bearing in mind you know like messiah has reminded us of this that the words of the minister of finance last year especially with the fact she said the federal government will look to soften the effect and cushion the effect of the um uh expected removal of subsidy in the 2022 and mid 2022 by giving the 40 million 30 to 40 million of the poorest Nigerians what she called a transportation grant and fact checkers and you know people went online and started doing their calculations to see that if that 5000 hour goes round to 40 million Nigerians you have 2.4 trillion error which is above the 1.8 trillion error expected to be spent on subsidy and should we be surprised then to see this confusion looking at what what happened then no I mean this is just same usual uh written uh and the strategy of this um I think uh like I said very shameless uh official who are not even smart you know in terms of uh defending and promoting their shenanigans in government and also attempt to deceive people in the process of of their their corruption and mismanagement of of public phone if you are capable of giving the 5000 like it says so continue the subsidy they would want to tell you oh no so it is just a few set of Nigerians that would benefit from subsidy and they want the mass of Nigeria we would not take the 5000 and a simple explanation or or or the feat of that you know ludicrous uh uh proposal it is simply if the 340 million will be affected it is by the subsidy remover so if you don't remove the subsidy then everybody would just be at home so if you give them uh the 5000 for transportation uh the man who is selling the meat in the market is also going to increase is that 5000 are going to take care of that the paper seller is going to increase because it she or she is subjected to the new increase that would follow the subsidy remover uh in terms of transportation fare so are you going to also use the 5000 for paper in fact landlords would also increase the rent are you going to also subsidize that uh but it is usually easy for them and you would ask yourself what happened with shopee uh because when the subsidy remover uh was proposed the the questioning of the effect was to also come up with the shopee uh under the previous government what eventually happened it was just a cesspool of corruption uh and the same thing is the proposal for this one because you can be sure that the so-called uh planned 2.4 trillion uh would end up with over 2 trillion in in private pocket than actually the beneficiaries uh that would be proposed and you know here we don't even have data uh the monitoring mechanisms are totally absent and where you have them very weak so it's difficult going to it's going to be difficult for you to actually track countries uh the the utilization uh of that 2.4 trillion or the new recipient especially going into elections so it's very easy uh for the ruling party to use that 5000 to mobilize you know their uh party uh supporters and members uh and also make them beneficiaries of this either for the purpose of mobilization for for election and votes or even for gratification for their support so this is not what Nigerians are looking for Nigerians are even willing uh to donate that 2.2.43 now in ensuring that the refineries would work uh with Nigerians who wants to find a final lasting end to this if we're not able to do it if we don't have people in government who can think out of the box or capable of finding solutions and they could they can do it and get um other people to go there and do it otherwise they can also speak to their uh six countries outside here could have have operationary for refineries and that is why Nigeria was also important from there these are countries even that are not oil producing countries that that are actually refining oils and free from the madness of having to import finished products for local consumption so um there's also another area of concern is the issue where lawmakers are saying that there's no budgetary provision for uh the removal I mean if it's anything to go by we're still waiting for all of the clarification at this point what will be the implication for the economy and what does that really mean when there's no budgetary allocation for uh for this action no I mean this government uh and uh most of them have always been spending the so-called subsidy uh without positions they found means and that actually should be raising concern uh for some of the uh civil society and especially the the the national assembly on how government official executive especially the executive is able to realize fund use for subsidy purposes when they were not budget budgeted for years in year out before now they've always had money spent for subsidy and it will never part of the original budget until after implementation is when that is also presented as either part of their evaluation or um part of report to the national assembly but I can assure you uh that they have means of actually raising the fund for the subsidy the only thing that is also clear it is part of the lack of accountability uh that they prefer to report the expenditure than actually projecting for it so that you didn't ask questions they only just report that we have spent uh for one million liters uh because if they are projected for that you possibly would have queried it and then also reduce the projection but in the in the sense that they they they don't want to subject themselves to that scrutiny and also accountability and there's no element of transparency that you want to associate usually with our government and executive so they prefer not to even budget for it but to use some of those funds that are illegally collected from the cbn or the nnpc uh to fund that you know uh conscription that is called the subsidy uh we within the within the oil sector uh mr. Lai Rajisuraj interesting you said of course probably a supplementary appropriation bill could be introduced to um to you know provide for for the the uh the funds needed to pay for this um you've pointed out the importance of um having a local refineries work and it's baffling why they're still not working um however on the front page of the punch in this report today uh i call this a two headline you know when you hear the government saying uh federal government two this one is the latest one uh uh the minnesot state for petroleum resources timber press silver saying fg2 establish 18 modular refineries in all producing states um this should be a welcome development would you say for uh bringing down stabilizing the price of uh pms in nigeria you know it's it's it's because of the country and also our part of the world is ridiculous that the only thing that we usually celebrate in this country is the proposal of government it is not the achievement of government and that is where you always see them uh making firm fear about the proposal or the plans of government and not the the attainment or the achievement of such proposal i mean how many refineries are modular refineries have we uh been uh approved has been approved or been approved by the government as passive government uh if you remember on that the government of president juniper uh there were approvals there were even licenses for people to construct you know um refineries in the country and unfortunately we never saw anything to that effect this said government started with this campaign of the modular refineries and approval for uh private sector uh involvement aside from the dago to refinery which is also a private sector and i can't imagine any responsible country which would rely on private investor uh to meet this citizen's demand in such a very serious subject matter like uh petroleum product which is also not does the means to have a economy of the country alone but such an important aspect of every day uh survival of the Nigerian people and it's so ridiculous that people will with firm fear tell you that the moment refineries dago to refineries uh comes to life uh then Nigeria will have to ease uh the the the sigh of relief and that is really for me uh sad to see uh that coming from the the mouth of of government officials and with this so-called modular refineries there's already one that was actually also recently uh commissioned in the southeast and uh the population of Nigerian consumption is not something that you would want to set down and somebody would just say okay 18 modular refineries are coming up but then has to be the strategic plan of how this is meant to work what is the timeline this government has just one and a half year to go uh and the same thing uh goes to the same government that has been there for over six years and it is now that it is realizing that they're going on the modular refineries for government but it is not about the same uh purpose of okay being uh for overcoming the challenges but it's just another opportunity for contract for the boys and also making all right all right mr mr saraj sorry to interrupt you but it's interesting you've said okay we have had several years six going to seven years of the administration and it's now they're realizing that they want to um uh create modular refineries but very quickly in one sentence you talked about mobilizing uh for action against this a perceived fuel subsidiary removal like it happened in 2023 in just 30 seconds and do we not need to be careful especially civil society um because there are persons who benefit from the subsidies and so that people are not deceived again um by certain persons who may have interests or certain interests uh vested interests if i if i may call it that very quickly in 30 seconds no i think that this is just what the government would call for so it's going to actually get that response uh from the citizens the civil society and the labor we can continue allowing the rapies to continue raping us over and over again and pretending that we're fine no we've been removing subsidy and we've been granting the need for the government to remove it thinking that that was going to be the last uh when the government actually increased the price of 143 uh naira per liter if people with a naira just to make it 144 there must be a constructive explanation that would convince the people and that we have not said we've just been talking about subsidy our expectation and assumption was that 143 we're not subsidizing anything again so for us to be hearing about subsidy i think it is just the the highest level of not just advocacy but this it and also fraudulent activities on the part of the government hello Raju sir Raj thank you so much for being part of the conversation this morning we do appreciate your time and we look forward to having this conversation some other time thank you so much for being part of the show always my pleasure well that's the size of the conversation and for me it's really troubling that we constantly have to talk about subsidy removal got a successive government and we have started mounting whether or not to remove and we're removing and not but the question is why do we have to constantly export petroleum product and important when we can make our refineries functional and it solves all of the problems that's a big question so we just keep going it's unbelievable i mean look at a country like Singapore that doesn't have a drop of crude oil but is able to export the petroleum products to Nigeria we can do better we can do better anyway that's the size of our packages with fun having you on the breakfast this morning we're back tomorrow same time on the same station my name is Kofi Bartels and i am messy hope if you missed out on any part of the conversation it's all right to follow on facebook twitter and instagram what plus tv africa and plus the africa lifestyle on youtube as well do 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