Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) has questioned Nigeria’s decision to take a World Bank loan of $800 million as a palliative to cushion the effect of the proposed fuel subsidy removal.
Development Diaries reports that the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, in April 2023 disclosed that Nigeria had secured the loan ahead of the June removal of subsidy.
The minister further stated that the World Bank loan is the first tranche of palliatives to be disbursed through cash transfers to about 50 million Nigerians, who belong to the most vulnerable category in society.
The Executive Director of CISLAC, Auwal Musa-Rafsanjani, in a statement, queried President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘nonchalant attitude’ towards the country’s crippling debt crisis.
The CISLAC boss further noted that if the fuel subsidy removal process has been suspended, then the government should return the borrowed money.
‘In 2022, Nigeria paid about N7 trillion in fuel subsidy and in 2023, from January to June when the country intends to stop paying the subsidy, it is N3.6 trillion’, he said.
‘So if we are paying such a whopping amount of money when subsidy is removed, we should have enough savings instead of taking additional loans, we can use the subsidy funds for post fuel subsidy removal’.
He advised the government to minimise waste instead of borrowing money from the World Bank.
He added, ‘As a matter of fact, we don’t need to borrow. What we need to do is to cut waste. Just recently, we all saw the aviation minister announce that he bought [ten] firefighting trucks for over 12 billion naira. Is this what we are borrowing to spend on’?
‘Also, we read that the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy announced the approval of 24.2 billion to provide internet facilities at airports and some institutions amongst other places.
‘These are the things we are spending on a few weeks before the end of this administration and this is unacceptable’.
The Nigerian government announced in 2022 its plan to remove the subsidy by June 2023, with President Muhammadu Buhari placing the responsibility on the Bola Tinubu-led incoming administration.
Photo source: CISLAC
