From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, has said that spending N6.7 trillion on fuel subsidy is not healthy for Nigeria’s economy.
Agba said this in Benin while speaking with journalists shortly after being honoured by the Universal Reggae Fans Movement (URFAM)as its Grand Patron.
“Often time we tend to blame government and when I look at the finances of the country, I know that we are a poor nation and I know that it is wrong for instance to spend N6.7 trillion on fuel subsidy and not healthy for the economy”.
“Ask yourself, if the PMS production is really N165, even if 100 Nigeria refineries are running in Nigeria, is production at the current crude rate N165?, it is not.But if you want to remove it, the citizens will say no.
“They said they want an omelette but they said you shouldn’t break eggs.They complained that the exchange rate is high, but we are not producing anything that we need to sell to earn dollars so that the exchange rate would be low. That is the aberration that we have in Nigeria.”
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Agba decried that Nigerians continue to blame our colonial master and past leaders on the nation’s problem when we are not ready to make sacrifice.
“Nobody is ready to make sacrifices and contribute toward the development of our nation but everybody is asking of what they can get from the country.
“Last year I had a Nigerian musician saying that he made $25 million and he is not paying tax. We should pay tax because the money that the government is using is from taxes.
“But no one wants to make that sacrifice and contribution but they want to take from the country and don’t want to give the country. That is why we need, a change of attitude”.
On the 2022 election, Agba charged Nigerians to vote those with proven leadership records and not those who have nothing to show for their previous positions being held by them while in office.
“As we move toward this election you have to look at the individual, what does that individual believe in, does that person have a pedigree, was he a governor before, if yes, what did he do in his state? is it something worthy to be replicated at the federal level?
“So, the people that we need to vote for in the forthcoming election are those that produce and not those that consume. We don’t need ‘Obidient’ production by mouth but the real and actual production people”, he said