OIL marketers on Wednesday said
the N161bn supplementary request by President Goodluck Jonathan had vindicated
their insistence that the government’s provision for fuel subsidy for the year
was inadequate.
The marketers, under the aegis of
the Jetties and Petroleum Tank Farm Owners, said the Minister of Finance, Mrs.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had only been deceiving the citizens that the N888bn
earmarked by government to pay subsidy on fuel would be enough.
“We have said it
continuously in the past that the N888bn fuel subsidy budget for 2012 was
inadequate but the finance minister has been proving stubborn and deceiving
Nigerians that the amount would be enough.
“We have been in this business
for a long time and we know what the trends are. I am happy that our position
has been justified,” Secretary of the oil marketers association, Mr. Enoch
Kenawa, told one of our correspondents in Abuja.
Kenawa urged the National
Assembly to promptly approve the President’s request for additional funding of
subsidy payment, saying it was only by so doing that there would be fuel supply
during the Yuletide.
He said, “We are calling on the
National Assembly to quickly pass request of the President so that supply of
products can increase.
“Once the money is approved,
Nigerians are assured of a good holiday period to ensure adequate supply of
fuel during Christmas.”
Jonathan on Tuesday wrote
to the National Assembly asking for additional N161bn to offset arrears of
subsidy claims and ensure payments till December 31.
The President told the federal
lawmakers that the government had so far spent N881bn to pay subsidy this year.
Okonjo-Iweala, had on October 21,
said that there would not be a supplementary appropriation for petroleum
subsidy payments.
According to her, the N888bn
allocated for subsidy payments in the 2012 budget should be enough to pay
petroleum product importers.
She said that the fund had not
been exhausted and should be enough to pay the subsidy bills for this year.
“We have not exhausted the fund
and there may not be a need for a supplementary budget,” Okonjo-Iweala had
said.
The oil marketers’ secretary also
said that the N917bn budgeted for fuel subsidy in 2013 would not guarantee
adequate supply of the product next year.
He said, “N917bn will not be
adequate because the government wants to put Nigerians in double jeopardy. They
said they are subsidising fuel yet people can’t see fuel to buy and where they
have fuel, people still pay very high to get this product.
“The N971bn for fuel subsidy will
not be adequate. At 35 million litres of fuel per day, the money can’t be enough.
If they want to remove subsidy let them remove it instead of what they are
doing right now. Based on the demand, the amount that would be reasonable for
fuel subsidy in 2013 should be between N1.2tn and N1.5tn.”
Meanwhile, the House of
Representatives on Wednesday suspended debate on the
fresh N161.6bn request by the
President Goodluck Jonathan to fund fuel subsidy.
The House, after the Speaker,
Aminu Tambuwal, read the President’s letter on Tuesday, had scheduled it for
debate on Wednesday. But no sooner had the debate commenced than the Speaker
halted it and said the members needed to be briefed by some Housee committees
in order to properly debate the request for additional funding by Jonathan to
pay subsidy.
Tambuwal said it was necessary
for the House committees on Finance, Petroleum Resources (Upstream); Petroleum
Resources, (Downstream); and Appropriation to brief members on the details of
the supplementary budget.
Tambuwal noted that lawmakers had
raised several “critical questions and issues” in the course of the debate for
which answers had not been provided.
The speaker ruled to “suspend the
debate until we meet tomorrow (today)” for the House to be briefed by the
chairmen of the four committees.
“The debate will continue
tomorrow”, he added.
Before the suspension, however,
some members had sought to know the extent of the implementation of the Subsidy
Re-Investment Programme since government had chosen to make additional budget
for subsidy.
But while defending the
President’s request, House Majority Leader, Mrs. Mulikat Adeola-Akande, claimed
that it was a proactive step taken by Jonathan to prevent fuel scarcity during
the Christmas and New Year period.
“I appeal to members to support
the second reading of this bill”, she stated.
Punch
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