Former governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, says fuel subsidy is back, but many Nigerians are not aware of it.
The former governor stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Maiduguri , Borno State capital, on Monday after presenting a paper titled: “Leadership and Public Policy: Navigating Challenges and Lessons”, at the Capacity-building workshop for Senior Government Officials of Borno State.
El-Rufai said the federal government is now paying more money for subsidy, than before.
“Fuel subsidy is another policy that has been implemented by the president, it’s the right policy,” El-Rufai said. I always supported withdrawing fuel subsidy.”
“But, in the course of implementation as you can see the government has now realized that the subsidy has to be back because right now, we are paying a lot of money for subsidy even more than before.
“This is because the impact has been seen and the packages of support that would reduce the impact have not been so effective in reducing the impact, so the federal government is back now subsidizing Petrol.”
He said many people don’t know that fuel subsidy is back, “but, if they want to know whether we are subsidizing or not, they should compare the price of petrol and diesel because petrol should be more expensive than diesel but diesel is priced above a thousand naira while petrol is at N600 per liter.
“So, we are still subsidising Petrol because the government has realised that the way it implemented the fuel subsidy initially required some adjustments. That’s what I keep saying about policy and policy pragmatism,” he said.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu had in his inaugural speech announced the removal of fuel subsidy, saying its payment was no longer justifiable.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
