These are precisely the points that the initiator of this discussion, who was celebrating the success of subsidy removal as an importation curbing, Naira-revaluation tool fails to see. The new importation figures suggest that the previous figures were bogus, cooked up by subsidy-craving thieves in government and in the private sector. It indicates that the January uprising forced these subsidy thieves to reluctantly start verifying the claimed volume of fuel importation. This is the most likely explanation since Nigeria's fuel consumption did not suddenly dip by about 45 percent and since we've not been told that domestic refining has increased by that much. I am surprised that an advocate of subsidy removal would giddily advance these new importation figures without realizing that they in fact undercut the case for subsidy removal by proving that the so-called subsidy, as some of us argued and as the House Committee has concluded, was nothing but a scheme of highly inflated and outright false fuel importation claims, claims that were then paid to politically connected thieves. In fact the statistical analyses of Bolaji Aluko on this list prove conclusively that Nigeria was never actually importing or consuming the amount of fuel that the fuel importers and the complicit government agencies claimed it was. So the new figures should be taken as a small step towards transparency in the fuel importation regime, and the credit for that goes to the mass action that Nigerians embarked upon in January, not to the so-called partial subsidy removal, which in fact was predicated on the bogus importation figures that are now discredited, and which has actually legitimized some of the bogus importation expenses of the fuel importers. Instead of celebrating a false reduction in fuel importation, we should be asking why we're importing refined fuel in the first place.
Sent from my iPad
Sent from my iPad
Possibly at the expense of the crooks who were pretending to import petrol but whose only objective was to collect 'subsidy', some of whom have been exposed by the House ad hoc committee's report on the same. We shall have to see whether the protection that the Attorney-General's reluctance to be proactive about prosecuting such fraudsters will embolden them to try 'subsidy' again, or whether they have found a new way of hoovering up the national cake into their insatiably greedy mouths.
AyoI invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama--I think it is unhelpful to see the release of the statistics in the news report as license to view one side on the debate as uninformed and the other as vindicated. The report if anything is eloquent in what it does not reveal as well as what it does. if partial removal of subsidy led to 45% reduction in importation how is this shortfall being met? Have the Nigerian refineries bridged the gap by increased production in the interim? Yes, it may have saved the FG forex and shored up the value of the Naira but at whose expense?--
As I stated in my initial contribution to the debate the success of the whole enterprise would depend on how govt ensures that majority of the people not only benefit from savings made as a result of the move, but that whatever programmes put in place to enhance purchasing power at new prices do not lead to inflationary trends such as seen in past palliatives as Udoji Award etc which only end up defeating the rationale behind minimizing the negative effects of such policies on the people they are meant to protect in the long run. Again it is undisputable that the whole affair was handled in a dictatorial stealth initally and much of what govt has been doing is due the manner in which the people decided to hold the govt accountable through mass action.
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Understanding the Struggle
From: meochonu@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 25 May 2012 17:37:10 -0500
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comNo, Okwy, I think you are the one who seems to have forgotten that the advocates of "subsidy removal" packaged it as part of the so-called deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, in fact as a stand-in for deregulation. By the way, since you seem so hung up on a textbookish understanding of deregulation and are unable to unpack and deconstruct its rhetorical claims, how can you have deregulation when you have a government price-setting body called PPRA presiding over how to price and allocate petroleum products? The layers of deception and the ignorant and sheepish adoption of ill-digested neoliberal jargons have unravelled tragically with dire consequences for Nigerians. Wake up from your neoliberal dogmatic stupor!
Sent from my iPadYour shock is very understandable given your inability to grasp the difference between deregulation and subsidy removal, and it is unnecessary to misrepresent Sanusi's view on this, his statement at the most recent MPC that held this week is in the public domainOkwyAnd how did you, Okwy Okeke, miss the fact that the anti-subsidy critics who argued that subsidy did not in fact exist (at least not nearly to the extent of the numbers being bandied around by the FG) have been vindicated by the report of the fuel subsidy probe? Have we, the uninformed critics, not been proven right that what exists is a system of fraudulent payments, false import declarations, and round-tripping bazaars that benefits only a few favored oil industry players and their government and political allies? I am shocked and appalled by the escapism of your post, and by its inexplicable removal from the facts of the $7 billion dollar subsidy scam. Even Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is now doing the backslide, asserting that the revelations discredit the case for so-called subsidy removal. Is "subsidy removal" not simply the legalization of a corrupt regime of fuel importation?
On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Okwy Okeke <okwudili98@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:Many at the beginning of the year were up in arms when the FG attempted deregulating the distribution and sale of pms, though many if not most economists that were not seized by the frenzy of the day argued that the average man on the street would benefit in the long run.At the risk of sounding like a bull-horn for the FG, I wrote in this space that deregulation was the way to go, unfortunately, we ended up with a leg in the world of deregulation, and the other outside of it.Given our import dependence, the common man may have seen material savings (Naira has traded for N160/$ for several weeks now, ~7% appreciation from its November 2012 value), and more importantly, the reduction of rent-seeking activities by government cronies.Opposition is the check a democracy needs to be on its toes, then, we need informed and sophisticated opposition (keyword: informed).Okwy------------------------------------------
We face forward,...we face neither East or West: we face forward.......Kwame Nkrumah
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com--
There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.
---Mohandas Gandhi
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment