The Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, on Tuesday, reiterated the need to deregulate the downstream petroleum through the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit.
According to him, only the wealthy were currently benefiting from the subsidy.
The minister spoke during the leadership and governors’ discourse on open government partnership held in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said, “Some will say if you take out fuel subsidies the ordinary will suffer; how will the ordinary man suffer? Is it in terms of food? Vehicles that are used for moving food are heavy duty vehicles. They don’t use PMS; they use diesel and that has since been deregulated. Those that we are actually subsidising are the very rich.”
He stressed the importance of Open Government Partnership which he said was to enable Nigerians to understand the poor state of the economy and look for ways of improving the situation.
