*FG to spend N1.6trn annually on infrastructure
As the strike called by Labour against the lifting of petrol subsidy entered its second day yesterday, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, finance minister and co-ordinating minister for the economy says transport owners have agreed to lower fares across the country, following talks with government.
This follows the provision of 1,600 buses by government, which are being released in stages across the country to alleviate the pains of the subsidy removal and rejuvenate the mass transit scheme.
“Government is working hard to make sure that the impact of the petrol subsidy removal is mitigated”, Okonjo-Iweala said on an Africa Independent Television (AIT) programme, ‘Matters Arising’ aired yesterday.
She added :” Government is working hard on mass transit.The president recognises that prices are going up and people are suffering.
Government is working to bring prices down and people will feel better. We are having discussions with transport owners and they have agreed they will bring the prices down”.
Commenting on the nationwide strike, Okonjo-Iweala said the anger of the people was understandable, and that it came from the failure of successive governments over the years to live up to their promises.
She observed:”Anger comes out of not trusting government because in the past three decades, governments have not lived up to their word or the peoples expectations”.
She promised however that the current administration was bringing about a marked change and improvement and would live up to its word.
She added that this government would operate transparently and would be publishing month by month, revenues accruing and details of expenditure, so that Nigerians could see for themselves whether or not the national wealth was being judiciously expended.
Attesting to this position, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Centrakl Bank, who was on the programme with Okonjo-Iweala said: President Jonathan amended the Secrecy Act, so people can know even howmuch is being spent on feeding in the (Aso) Villa.”
On what government would do with the savings from the petrol subsidy removal, Okonjo-Iweala said:”Lets take the money and make these roads better. Then transport costs will come down.
It will enable us create jobs for our young people. We can create 370,000 jobs a year for the youth.
Our women should not die. They need health services – prenatal and antenatal. We have some of the worst statistics for maternal deaths in the world.
“We can put in place better health services that will enable us save 12 million lives that would have died over the next four years”.
She further said that government was working to block leakages emanating from cumbersome administrative procedures as well as fraudulent practices. Some of these, she said were being tackled technologically through the adoption of biometrics. She said that through this system,government had succeeded in blocking N1 billion in payments to ghost pensioners per month in the Police Force.
She pointed out that over 6,000 projects across the country had been running for years without completion. She said the savings from the petrol subsidy removal would be invested in completing such abandoned projects which would ultimately deliver the much needed reliefs to the people. She also assured the determination of the government to invest in Nigeria’s existing refineries in partnership with the private sector. “Government will not run the refineries because we have proved we dont have the capacity to run them effectively. But we are going to invest in them in partnership with the private sector,” she said.
Further adding his voice, Sanusi, who was also on the same programme, said there are two alternatives open to Nigeria and the Jonathan administration; to remove the fuel subsidy and put the economy on sound footing or continue to borrow to subsidise, incur huge debts and ground the economy in five years time.
He explained that it was better to face the issue once and for all, to guarantee the health of the economy, insisting that the long-term benefits of the policy far outweigh the pains of the moment.
Okonjo-Iweala also observed that a whopping N1.6 trillion annual investment would be required over a period of time to upgrade existing infrastructure in the country and build new ones.
The reality of this huge investment simply means that government begins to look for avenues of earning extra income which it must channel into infrastructure upgrade so as to support productive venture and boost the economy, she said.
