Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule has justified the removal of fuel subsidy by the administration of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu is benefiting people of the country, saying its funds were being judiciously utilised.
The governor said funds accruing from the subsidy removal were being deployed to provision of infrastructure and other initiatives aimed at improving the standard of living of the people.
He spoke while hosting members of the Forum of Former Local Government Council Chairmen, alongside members of the Forum of Former Local Government Councilors in the state, at the Government House in Lafia yesterday.
He said money realised from the removal of subsidy was being ploughed back to the various tiers of governance for development across the states and local government areas.
Governor Sule noted that the current subsidy regime initiative had outperformed others before it, including the Petroleum Task Force (PTF) and SURE-P among others, adding that unlike in the previous dispensations where monies from subsidy removal were mostly utilised by the federal government, under President Tinubu, monies being realised were being re-channeled to the states and local governments for much needed development.
“We must thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. I saw all kinds of criticisms about the withdrawal of subsidy and the unification of the foreign exchange and where the money is going. These are the kinds of places the money is going to,” he stated.
“The truth is that, don’t mistake me for criticising anybody. I am just trying to present the facts as they are. We came in when the local government was having difficulty in even paying full salaries. That was the situation we found on the ground. It’s the same thing with pensions. Pensions, both at the local government and the state level were having challenges.
“When I said that, then you can imagine there is no way these people can have any savings. Because since they don’t have even enough to pay, where will they save? The entire allocation of the local government, sometimes it would be N1bn, their salary was already N1.1bn. Sometimes, it would be a little bit above N2bn, N2.4, N2.3. That was what we met. Today, the local government is boasting of N5bn. That is the situation, just that the salary has also increased significantly to over N2bn,” he said.
