Mohammed Shosanya
The $800 million loan purportedly secured by the Nigerian Government from the World Bank palliatives won’t solve fuel subsidy problem in the country,Human Environmental Development Agenda,HEDA,has said.
Chairman of the group,Olanrewaju Suraju,who disclosed this in a statement,also alleged that the loan is a ploy by the bank and government officials to further plunge the country into debt and provide opportunities to divert public funds under the guise of palliatives.
He implored President Muhammadu Buhari to rid the country’s petroleum sector of corruption and revamp its refineries before removing fuel subsidy.
He expressed concerns over the state of the nation’s petroleum industry and punctured government’s plan to remove fuel subsidy without addressing corruption and revamping the ailing refineries.
He noted that corruption and mismanagement have plagued the Nigerian petroleum industry, leading to the poor state of the refineries in Nigeria.
He said the government’s failure to revamp the refineries has resulted in over-reliance on imported fuel, contributing to the high cost of fuel and the need for subsidy
He advised the government to take concrete steps to revamp the refineries and clean up corruption bedeviling the sector.
This includes implementing policies that promote transparency and accountability, ensuring a transparent process in the award of contracts, and appointing officials to oversee the refineries’ revamp as well as investigating the utilization of all the previous Turn Around Maintenance allocations to the refineries since 1999 to date.
