Fuel Subsidy Removal Aims At Maximising Profits For Dangote Refinery – HURIWA
…Says, minimum wage review can’t cushion effect of astronomical increase
Civil rights advocacy group on the aegis of ‘Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)’, has said that the coincidental inauguration of the Dangote Refinery in Lagos and the sudden removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was suspect.
It said that it was already in the public domain that some powerful government officials invested heavily in the Dangote group on an individual basis and now want to quickly recoup their investment.
HURIWA particularly said that the development was a pointer to the fact that many government officials turned investors in the new refinery, deliberately orchestrated subsidy removal in order to monopolise and maximise their profit in Dangote Refinery.
This was as it declared that salary increase in most jurisdictions occur with changing economic trends and high costs of living and not necessarily when government arbitrarily decides to inflict economic suicide on a massive scale such as was done by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who announced the pulling out of the so-called fuel subsidy without reaching any consensus with the Organised Labour and the civil society.
The rights group therefore carpeted the new administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over what it described as “the abrupt and suspicious” removal of fuel subsidy, stressing that the Federal Government has clearly demonstrated that it has no feeling towards the plight of the Nigerian people at a time the nation and the informal sector is just recovering from the economic crisis occasioned by the naira scarcity caused by the Central Bank of Nigeria during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration
It therefore called on Tinubu to as a matter of national interest probe the allegations that US$2.1 billion and N3.1 trillion public funds of oil revenues budgeted as fuel subsidy payments were missing and unaccounted for between 2016 and 2019, as documented by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
HURIWA in a statement by its national Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, specifically knocked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) for saying the volume of petrol consumed daily in Nigeria may drop by 30 per cent after the removal of subsidy.
Onwubiko said that while the money budgeted for subsidy continually gets missing just as the country’s estimated 66 million litres daily consumption had been contested by top economists and even the current Customs boss severally.
HURIWA also faulted the statement by the Tinubu to review the present N30,000 National Minimum Wage as a way to cushion the removal of subsidy on petrol, stressing that the review of the Minimum Wage is long overdue before the subsidy removal controversy.
According to HURIWA; “It said minimum wage should be reviewed every five years to fit current standard of living, cushion the effect of inflation, increase in cost of living, increase in transportation, and increase in housing increase in electricity and other utilities.
“Minimum wage was increased from N18,000 to N30,000 in 2018 though many states are yet to implement it and the next five-year period is 2023, subsidy removal or not.
“The planned review of minimum wage is long overdue and not a justification for subsidy removal and fuel pump price increase because less than 2% of Nigerians are employed in the public sector with nearly 50% in the informal sector and over 26% of unemployed people in the country with others such as pensioners, the sick and lastly children and students.
“Aside public sector workers, most other Nigerians are seriously not captured by the public wages upgrade. So, the wage review isn’t a solution at all.
“The decision of the NLC and TUC to take industrial action to force the government to return to status quo ante bellum is legal, constitutional, popular and pro-poor.
“We urge the Organised Labour to eschew selfishness and maintain their stand that concrete measures must be implemented such as repairs of public refineries, investigations of the petroleum sub-sector of the economy from 2015-2023, the probe of the subsidy claims and payments since 2015 till date and the investigation of the quantity of fuel that are consume within the Nigerian domestic market to ascertain accurate statistical data of accurate amount of fuel supply and purchases by Nigerians,” it said.
HURIWA also vowed to sue the government if the investigation of the subsidy heists is not done and the culprits named, shamed and punished, saying that the consumption rate under subsidy regime is fraudulent and unscientific.
It further said; “In as much as private investors should be encouraged in the sector, it should not be a planned work with corrupt officials to milk the Nigerian people dry and exploit the masses.
“CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, at the Dangote Refinery inauguration said the owners had paid 70% of the loan taken for the $18bn project. Nigerians want to know how the 70% of $9bn loan was paid back. “Evidently, the subsidy removal was allegedly planned and agreed by the government as a pre-condition for Dangote to build a refinery when the Western world is moving away from Fossil Fuel. The removal of the subsidy is to maximise profits for the owners of Dangote at the expense of the common man,” HURIWA said.
