While responding to a question from the House Committee on Agriculture, the CBN Governor on Monday said that about N22b spent on fertilizer subsidy by the Federal Government was a fraud. He alleged that “only about 11% of the subsidized fertilizer, eventually gets to end users, and that the fertilizers supplied to the farmers did not weigh up to 50kg. He further said half of the what was supplied to the farmers was ordinary sand. Strong allegations don’t you think? In fact it reminds me of a similar allegation involving subsidy of petroleum products.
It’s the same story we hear from proponents of fuel subsidy removal. Nobody tells you the intentions of fuel subsidy is not bad, rather they just tell you that some guys are gaming the system and as such we just have to take out subsidy. Very soon the government will stop building roads and providing other social amenities because certain people in power are corrupt, fraudulent and gaming the system. Pure gibberish from a seemingly inept system. Since they know the oil importers that are defrauding us, can’t they then equip the police and several other security apparatus to nab them. Why not just make one person a scapegoat and setting an example for others. As far as I know no one is yet to be arrested for “fuel subsidy” fraud.
It is easy to argue for removing fuel subsidy because of the huge financial gain that will come to proponents of it. From the private sector to the government. The windfall is just too much to ignore. As for Agriculture, well, will they attempt to remove subsidy on fertilizers as well? Your guess is as good as mine.
