Wednesday, 9 November 2011

FG, govs agree on oil subsidy removal

THE presidency said on Tuesday that all the 36 state governors and other key stakeholders in the country had agreed with the Federal Government to withdraw oil subsidy.
The governors are of six political parties, made up of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Labour Party (LP).
They had some months ago declared that they would not implement the new minimum wage of N18,000 unless fuel subsidy was withdrawn.

The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Dr Reuben Abati, confirmed to the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja, on Tuesday, that Jonathan was carrying out consultations with a wide spectrum of stakeholders in the country, as part of efforts to ensure the passage of the initiative.
“You know that one major constituency that has been carried on board is the governors. The money that the governors are fighting about is the money for subsidy.
“They are saying nobody should deduct anything from their allocation to go and subsidise petroleum products, which means the governors were the first to even push the bill and many of these governors, if you have been monitoring their commentaries, you will see that almost all the governors have spoken up in support,” he said.
According to him, “the truth of the matter is that, since the fuel subsidy bill was submitted as part of that medium term framework, there has been a series of meetings. There has been series of it.”
Abati disclosed further that Jonathan did not want it to appear that the removal of fuel subsidy issue was a government policy which must be accepted by the people, saying that “it is not just that government wants to ram deregulation down the throat of people.”
Source

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