Subsidy removal will choke economy, says David-West

The planned removal  of fuel subsidy  will strangle the economy, stoke up inflation, hurt businesses and the public, former  Petroleum  Minister Professor Tam David – West, has said.

Speaking on “Oil ‘Subsidy’: Facts, Fiction and fraud”  at a business lecture series of Lagos Country Club, he  said subsidy removal is “insane and could tip the economy towards  recession.”

He said high fuel prices are putting the brakes on the quality of life of Nigerians.

David -West cautioned the government to desist from the  increasing the fuel prices because of its adverse effects on the country’s economy and its impoverished people, who live on barely a dollar per day.

He  urged the government to announce measures to bring down and stabilise the cost of fuel.

David -West said the cost  of filling  a car in Nigeria is  one of the highest  among  oil producing  countries.

At  $1.62 cents  a gallon, the cost is still not  cheap for  a number of Nigerians who want to fill  their vehicles, he said.

David-West, who argued that the cost of production of petroleum products in Nigeria is one of the cheapest in the world, challenged the government to provide statistics to back up its claim to the contrary.

He said the government was misleading Nigerians on the deregulation of the sector because its real intention is to hike fuel prices.

He challenged President Goodluck Jonathan to first combat corruption in the industry before forging ahead with the controversial policy.

According to him, contrary to government’s claim that the subsidy on products discourages private investment in refineries, it was corruption that is the bane of the industry.

The former minister during his time as Petroleum Minister under Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, was wrongly accused of corruption by the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida regime and clamped into detention.

He said that Nigeria was supposed to have had at least five refineries by 1986 if the Ibibio and Efik in the Old Cross River State had resolved their differences over the location of the refinery, which Second Republic President Shehu Shagari had planned to build in the state.