Maintenance / construction of Nigerian
road. Nigeria being a large country, removal of this fuel subsidy will help to
accelerate the construction and maintenance of Nigerian roads since the monies
that had been allied in the construction and maintenance of Nigerian road
so far has not been enough due
to the number of roads that needs government attention in the north,
south and eastern parts of this country.
It
will create job opportunities: The
Minister of Works Arch Michael Onolememen during his plea to Nigerians on the need to embrace government
policy on subsidy removal said that the
subsidy removal will create 3000
jobs in his ministry. This subsidy
removal will also engage so many youths in other sectors of the economy. The
youth employment intervention will target large numbers of unemployed youths from the poorest population
in each state of the federation to FCT.
In addition, the level of remuneration will be such that will ensure the self selection
of only the poor.
A robust programme structure will be developed to
ensure adequate over sight and
accountability. During a presidential
broadcast on subsidy removal, Mr.
President said that he will
constitute a board known as “Subsidy Reinvestment Brand”, consulting firms with international
reputation will be appointed to provide
technical assistance to the board in financial and project management. Relevant MDAs will set up project implementation
while an independent body will report
directly to the board.
Allows
for Nigerian to get fuel from alternative fuel dealers (competition). Subsidy has discouraged
competition and stiffed private investment in the downstream sector. Investors have shied away from investment in
the development of refineries, petrochemicals, fertilizer plants etc. the
subsidy removal of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry will lead to
rapid private sector investment in refineries and petrochemicals, which will
generate millions of jobs and lead to
increased prosperity for our people.
Subsidy
has also created huge price disparity, which has encouraged smuggling of
petroleum products across the boarder to neighboring countries, where prices
are much higher. Nigeria therefore ends up subsidizing consumption of petroleum
products in neighboring countries.
There
will be an improved fiscal space: The withdrawal of oil subsidy will also
offer an opportunity to accelerate
investments in critical infrastructure
that will directly spur economic
growth, job creation and will be
consistent with the present administrations transformation agenda to achieve
the preset administrations
transformation agenda to achieve the
vision 20:20:20 which Nigerians are craving for.
Water
and Agricultural Development: Subsidy
removal will harness Nigeria’s abundant
water resources for national development through sustainable food production and water conservation.
This component according to the Minister of Agriculture Dr Adewumi
Adesina will actualized the current
policy thrust towards self reliance for
rice and other food production and
enable the agricultural value chain
transformation to be achieved. He equally stated in a chat will political
platform that the revitalization of the irrigation projects will increase local
production of rice by over 400,000 tons per year, thereby reducing the
importation of food in Nigerian . This will further ensure better food
security for the country and improve
human nutrition and health and
will further enhance job creation by all
year round employment generation.
Need to address urban/ rural water supply
projects: the proceed from subsidy
removal if save and part of it
reinvested in water supply projects will increase the level of portable water supply available to
about 10 million people. It
will also increase the national access to water supply form current levels of 58% to 75%
and will contribute to a reduction in the infant mortality rate due to
improvement in sanitation and reduction in water borne
diseases. This is as submitted by Hon Minister of Water Resource, Mrs. Sarah
Ochekpe at Federal Executive Council meeting.
Enhancement
of power supply: in a briefing federal ministry of power made
by Prof Barth Nnaji on the need for
workers to embrace government policies, he stated and I quote “the component of subsidy removal will contribute
towards the power sector reforms
by improving the generation capacity
through hydro and power mants”
unquote. The programme will provide counterpart funding for
the contraction of the large mammilla hydropower project that will generate an additional 2,6000 megawatts of electric power. The programme will also provide funding to
complete a total 17 small and medium hydroelectric power project
with a cumulative capacity of 140.273 meg watts. This will provide counterpart
funding for PPPs with the private
sectors for development of coal power
projects in Enugu, Benue, Kogi,
with a potential to generate
1000 megawatts of power.
Facilitation
of ICT: In one of the workshops jointly organized by
ministry of youth development and ministry of communication technology to
facilitate the build out critical aspect
of ICT infrastructure in Nigeria, the hon. Minister of Communication Technology
Mrs. Omobolaji Johnson stated that the proceeds from oil subsidy will be beneficial to youths in the
following way:
a.
The fund will be
used to boost broadband connectivity at the transmission layer of the national
infrastructure using failure, which unlike microwave delivers higher broadband
sped at the access network, lead to more affordable and better quality of
communication services.
b.
Will extend ICT
connectivity to all tertiary institutions
in Nigeria through establishment of e- teaching and e- learning platform
c.
The initiative can generate 70,000 new
jobs spread across the six geopolitical zones, over 60% will
be concentrated in the north that
has higher connectivity advantage.