I dont know why we like to suffer. Why people who ought to educate the populace on their best interests are consumed by parochial partisan sentiments. It is obvious that a subsidy regime on Premium motor spirit is unsustainable. It is the fulcrum of corruption in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. It is the reason our refineries will not work. It is the reason the international oil companies will not build refineries here. Why do we think we can fight corruption by trying to arrest a few individuals and prosecute them. By the way all those who are in court how many have been convicted. They will compromise the police who investigate, they will bribe and intimidate the witnesses, they will hire the best lawyers around who will exploit our archaic criminal processes to delay the cases as long as possible until the evidence of the witnesses become manifestly unreliable and then the judge. I dare not go there. Then after we have created this tempting system we go to roof top to shout corruption. For goodness sake remove all the subsidies real and imaginary. Govt hands off petroleum distribution. Let us cut our loss sell the refineries even for N1. Three years down the line fuel will be cheaper than it is today and we can make progress. Which is easier change a corrupt system or keep it and start looking for whom to catch. Simple legal premise if you have a law which is defied by as much 10% the justice system will be overwhelmed. Now we have breaches of over 80% and we keep the system. Let no supposed activist or NGO tell me anything. Protesting against removal of PMS subsidy is politically convenient but economically nonsensical.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:30:03 +0000