Use Subsidy’s $800m Palliative for Healthcare, Education, Lawmaker Urges FG
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
A lawmaker representing Degema/Bonny Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Doctor Farah Dagogo, has urged the federal government to use subsidy’s $800 million palliative to improve on the healthcare and education sectors.
The Rivers State federal lawmaker also advised the government to jettison the planned $800 million cash transfers to about 50 million Nigerians that would serve as cushion for Premium Motor Spirit (Fuel) subsidy removal.
According to Dagogo, the federal government should rather invest the money in visible and critical sectors that would be beneficial to the majority of Nigerians as the transparency of the proposed cash transfers to vulnerable Nigerians cannot be guaranteed.
Recalled that the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, recently said the federal government secured the sum of $800 million from the World Bank, as part of its post-subsidy palliative plans that would be distributed to 10 million households, which according to her is equivalent to about 50 million Nigerians.
Dagogo, who spoke yesterday in his Easter message signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ibrahim Lawal, faulted the alleged claim by the minister that the country already has a National Social Register for 10 million vulnerable households from where the $800 million will be distributed to.
“As Nigerians are sacrificing their fuel subsidy benefits, it should be for a general improvement in the educational and health sectors not some phantom list of names compilations which is already fraught with deceit.
“Easter is a period when we Christians devote our time to reflect on the role of Jesus Christ in our lives and resolve to walk the path of moral regeneration. This period of grace is even more philosophical in view of the fact that it was preceded by the Lenten Season which itself is a holy period for we Christians. It is then succinct that the Nigerian Government also takes lessons and relates it to dealings with its citizens especially with the first $800 million fuel subsidy removal palliative.
“I consider it disingenuous on the part of the federal government to say Nigeria has a Social Register for 10 million vulnerable households, which they (FG) translated to be 50 million Nigerians. Just as I am finding it difficult wrapping my brain around it, so also are majority of Nigerians bemused.
“It is my fervent wish and prayer that this auspicious period will usher in a new dawn of renewed hope, growth, development, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria,” Dagogo added.
