I Plan To Reform The Health Sector – Oby Ezekwesili

Oby Ezekwesili, the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), has promised to let go of fuel subsidy if elected as president

The former vice-president of the World Bank, said this while unveiling her road map for 2019 in Lagos today.

She claimed that oil subsidy had been renamed under-recovery and has spent N1.3 trillion on fuel subsidies.

She explained that the same government allocated N1.3 trillion to capital projects for an entire budget year.

Ezekwesili said she is committed to implementing difficult reforms, including the oil sector reform.

“When I read somewhere that the minister of state for petroleum resources disclosed that the federal government spends N1.3trillion on under-recovery, which is the new name that this government has given to fuel subsidy, I was shaken.

“N1.3 trillion, as in 1.3 trillion? Let me put that figure in perspective for you. The former minister of finance told us a few months ago that the total amount that the federal government released for capital expenditure is N1.3 trillion.

“The total amount of money that this government spends on subsidising fuel is about the same amount that it spends on the construction of roads and stocking our hospitals with medicine, funding our universities, and working on power as well as other types of infrastructure.

“It is the same fuel that ends up in neighbouring countries, the same fuel that the poorest among us in several state across the country pay substantially more for?

“Some people are feeding fat and buying private jets on our commonwealth. That is why this unwholesome fuel subsidy must go.

“It is stagnating our economy, and impoverishing our people. Just imagine how much good an ACPN government can do with an extra N1.3 trillion to spend effectively and efficiently, considering that my middle name is Madam Due Process.”