Buffeted from all sides by vicious vultures, the government last week finally caved in to the demand of advocates of deregulation by increasing pump price of petroleum from N87 to N145. The increase, according to Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information was inevitable, citing as reasons the dwindling foreign reserve, the reduction in crude production from 2.2m bpd to 1.65 bpd because of vandalisation of oil pipelines by sponsored elements and the fact that the N16.4b needed monthly for subsidy was just not available. We can add the sabotage by independent oil marketers who openly declared that importation of over 70% of oil consumption requirement by a government that refused to give their members foreign exchange will not bring an end to long queues at filling stations because NNPC is dependent on their storage facilities.
The government has other off-shore detractors starting with Forbes and Bloomberg magazines that described Buhari as ‘obstinate’ for refusing to devalue the naira and take IMF loan, their principals including the IMF itself and other western leaders like David Cameron who survives on proceeds of stolen funds warehoused in their countries and of course those who stand to lose from government’s ban on 21 items gulping $12b of our foreign exchange every four months.
Unfortunately, Buhari and his cash-strapped government need cash from even his detractors to finance a deficit budget of N2 trillion. Hence instead of apology, he appealed to Cameron to return our cash. His efforts at making beneficiaries of funds illegally taken out of the CBN vault with boxes, vomit what they all admitted was shared, is not receiving the support of some judges and some unpatriotic senior members of the bench. The Arab world he turned to for cash to implement his N2b budget deficit, have said, as players in the global financial market, access to their loans is also tied to IMF ‘conditionalities’. China of course was not ready to give cash but projects. And reparation of stolen funds creatively deployed by some western countries to solve problems of social dislocations in their societies is a slow process.
Unfortunately, in what is nothing but an act of misplaced aggression, those of us, whose battle Buhari is fighting at his old age, are being misguided by Labour that looked the other way while salaries of civil servants including doctors were unpaid for six months by 26 states of the federation while the current lawmakers engaged in profligacy. Meanwhile our real enemies, the political elite and their trader-capitalists who have since 1999 waged war against the impoverished poor earning between N10,000–N18,000 and the middle class have continued to behave as if they are doing us a favour by serving us.
While the lowest paid workers may now have to spend their take home pay on transportation, going by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), each of the of the 109 senators earns N19.26m.
His House of Reps counterpart earns a little less. This is apart from quarterly office running cost put at N192million per senator per quarter while their House of Representatives counterparts received N140 million (2009 figures). They also get about N500,000 as wardrobe allowance, N202, 640 as newspapers/periodicals allowance, recess allowance of over N200, 000. They collect interest-free car loans. They have official cars fuelled by taxpayers. In the past they executed multi-million constituency projects.
They take severance package which is in millions after four years while pensioners are unable to collect their pension years after retirement. About 21 of them are ex-governors who after mouth-watering severance packages of houses, cars and cash still collect pension as well as scandalously high salaries.
It was these self-serving lawmakers that started our nightmare shortly after Obasanjo’s inauguration in 1999. The inauguration was followed by long queues in filling stations as a result of artificial scarcity created by cash-strapped politicians who claimed they sold houses to fight the 1999 election.
Obasanjo’ s award of contract to refurbish the refineries was sabotaged by the politicians who failed to deliver after collecting contract payment. Then a self-serving bill for the establishment of PPPRA was promptly passed into law and quickly assented to by Obasanjo within three months, February to May 2003. Its mandate was to ‘liberalise the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, privatise the refineries, deregulate and liberalise the imports of petroleum products and, generally, make the products available at reasonable prices.
But PPPRA became tool for political patronage. The body then went on to increase the number of fuel importers from less than a dozen to over 148 made up of PDP stalwarts and their siblings. In 2011, it inflated consumption of imported petroleum products by N1trillion. A House probe was to show later that these PDP stalwarts and their siblings allegedly stole about N1.7 trillion through fraudulent practices including forging of government documents to receive subsidy without ‘importing a bottle of fuel’. Thirteen years down the line, PPPRA with staff strength of 249, and a 22-man strong board, earning salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum, serves only the interest of those that set it up. It is not a surprise that one of their former board members has been linked with the Panama scandal.
Sadly, by the time Buhari was throwing in the towel last week, some of their other baleful legacies include dysfunctional refineries, the collapse of the over 4,000 kilometres of oil pipeline commissioned by Obasanjo in 1979, as well as government-owned fuel tank farms with PPPRA now dependent on the storage facilities of members of Depot Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) with some boasting of the largest and most modern storage facilities in the world and the Independent Marketers Company (NIPCO) that has invested billions in storage facilities.
While the nation frittered away about $30b on fuel subsidy between 2011 and 2012, an amount enough to build several refineries, at the time, Dangote’s $14b refinery which will come on stream in 2018, will not only meet the nations demand for fuel consumption but also put an end to 100% importation of fertilizer. “Today, Nigeria imports 100 percent of its fertilizer, but when we finish, Nigeria will be the largest exporter of Urea and Ammonia in Africa, and it will meet our total domestic requirement and save foreign exchange”, Dangote recently declared. His director has also confirmed “The refinery is the largest single line in Africa’, with refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), production of 750,000 metric tons of polypropylene per year and 2.8 million tones of fertilizer per annum,” Adding his own voice, Emefiele the CBN Governor said “it will fetch Dangote about $6b foreign exchange earning which will bring relief to a nation that until Buhari’s courageous moves last week was spending about 38% of its reserve on subsidy.”
Labour has a duty to let those it represents know that Buhari is not the enemy but David Mark, Ekweremadu, Saraki, Gbajabiamila who awarded themselves generous pay for oversight function they performed in default, their colleagues who engaged in on what Obasanjo once called ‘theatrics on the floor of the National Assembly’ over subsidy removal when there was no subsidy appropriation. We can add subsidy cartels that stole N1.7t, those who according to ex-Governor Peter Obi “were paid for vessels that were not anywhere near the Nigerian waters”, the 25 marketers who were ordered to pay back N382 billion to the government following the findings of the presidential committee that looked into the disbursement of the fuel subsidy fund, vandals engaged in vandalisation of oil pipelines and their patrons and finally some of those unskilled or dubious Nigeria- trader capitalists who are richer than Nigeria and now threaten the system with the idle $20b kept in domiciliary account.
NATION
END
Be the first to comment