Ahead of an emergency session of the House of Representatives today, former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and a serving Senator, Chief Barnabas Gemade has advised Nigerians not to expect the lawmakers to reverse government’s decision to remove subsidy on petroleum products.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on National Planning, said no clause in the constitution or the PPPRA Act compels the President to seek approval from the National Assembly before removing subsidy on fuel.
“Well, the consultations for the removal were done with all Nigerians and not specifically with members of the national assembly, the law does not necessarily require the National Assembly to act before subsidy is removed, it is simply the fact that the National Assembly represents the groups; because they are grassroots representatives; they represent all the people.
“It is very much like the appointment of the Ministers, which is purely the decision of the President, so consulting the National Assembly, was in the same line as consulting the organized labour and generality of the people. So I don’t think we were mandated to do any particular action, by way of an Act to permit the Executive branch of government to remove subsidy”, he said.
According to him; “The Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), is an executive programme that was to apply subsidy on petroleum products, on account of the need to continue to import large quantities of petroleum products in the face of the poor performance of the refineries, and what the National Assembly did was to legalise a programme of the Executive and therefore, give teeth to the PPPRA and make the National Assembly have a say on the issue of pricing”.
He advised Nigerians to adjust to the new reality of zero-subsidy and have it in mind that issues of economy are the preserve of the Executive
“We must first find a point of meeting in order to ensure that the performance and the applications are smooth. But here, it is not a normal situation. It is well within the purview of the executive to remove fuel subsidy. This is purely an executive decision.
“The executive is in charge of the management of the economy, in terms of monetary and fiscal measures in order to control and decide the way the Nigerian economy should go. So, I believe it is not the decision of PPPRA now, it is the decision of the executive branch of government”.
In a budget 2012 analysis, the former presidential aspirant argued that though the estimates were reasonable, the budget for security was too high.
He rather advised that the money voted for security be used to address the root causes of insecurity in the country.
“The amount of budget for security, I think is a little bit on the high side; when you talk about N942billion for security; it is certainly very high.
“There are many things that are promoting this insecurity: poverty, anger, deprivation, ignorance, illiteracy; we need to put more money in roads, schools, put more money in roads, and agriculture”, he said.
He, however, added that: “First of all the President and his team have presented a very reasonable budget to Nigeria. We must give credit when there is need to give credit. I am not a sycophant as all of you know. Looking at it on the broad basis, the statutory transfers and debt services all come to N960billion, which is about N1trillion.