Senate unanimous in vote against Subsidy removal

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The Senate has voted unanimously against the removal of the subsidy on petroleum products despite a recommendation from one of its committees (Finance) that the subsidy be removed.

Speaking on the decision, Senate President, David Mark said, “If subsidy has to be removed, there must be public enlightenment and education so that facts would be made available to the people and then public opinion at the end of the day will count.

“If we sit here now and said remove subsidy, I think those who are benefitting from subsidy are very powerful and tomorrow they would influence media report and twist it to create an impression that the Senate is anti-people.”

The Senate voted whilst adopting the report of the Ahmed Makarfi led Committee of Finance.

Mark said, “At the inception of the 7th Senate, I did say emphatically that there is no issue in this country that we cannot discuss as respected and distinguished senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If we have the courage to set up a committee nothing will stop us from taking the report of that committee and nothing will be swept under the carpet in this red chamber.

“I think what is glaring from this report is that we are all guilty. If the committees expected to carry out oversight functions on the NNPC were doing their job very well, we wouldn’t have needed the Governor of Central Bank to ring an alarm bell before reacting.

“Whether the alarm is genuine or not is another matter. The Executive may have good reasons but the legislature obviously does not have reasons not to find out. Let me appeal to the various committees to endeavour to do their work.

“Facts are different from rumours and what we have before us are the facts based on the interview conducted by the committee on public hearing and on all the documents that they could put together.

“One thing is very obvious, due process has not been followed and they have stated so very clearly.”

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