PRESIDENT
Goodluck Jonathan on Monday said the Subsidy Reinvestment and
Empowerment programme promised by his administration was no longer
realistic.
The President said SURE was hurriedly
conceptualised in January on the heels of the nationwide protest against
the removal of the fuel subsidy. Jonathan added that the implementation
was no longer feasible since the zero-subsidy policy planned by his
administration was not being implemented.
Jonathan spoke at the 58th National
Executive Committee meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party where he
ordered his party men to retrieve copies of a SURE publication that had
been advertised.
The PDP members had distributed the
publication to attendees at the meeting, but on sighting the document
the President expressed surprise and ordered that it should be
withdrawn.
The President said, “As I came in, I saw
this SURE book being distributed, we are withdrawing it. This is the
old one. We developed this with the expectation that we were going to
completely deregulate the downstream sector of the oil industry, (after)
the 100 per cent removal of subsidy.
“You know we could not achieve that
though there was an increase in the pump price. I don’t want this thing
to be distributed; it will give a wrong impression.
“We are working on a new document based
on the reality, but we don’t want to promise what we will not achieve.
Those who have it please withdraw it, we cannot realise the money that
is stated therein, but we will still come up with a document based on
what we get.”
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