Employers Association Opposes World Bank’s $800m Petrol Subsidy Palliatives

Nigeria Consultative Employers Association (NECA) has joined the Organized Labour in rejecting the World Bank’s $800 million grant, for palliative to cushion the harsh effects of the proposed petrol subsidy removal.

Federal Government plans to share the grant to targetted households of vulnerable and poor Nigerians.

But the employers association in a statement on Thursday warned that injecting the $800 million grant into an economy facing inflationary pressure was ill advised.

Director General of NECA, Adewale Smart-Oyerinde, asks Federal Government to forget the $800 million grant, and focus on fixing the local refineries to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported petrol.

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He said that NECA request for a more all-encompassing institutional structure to manage the gradual removal of the subsidy after fixing the refineries and not the proposed palliatives.

“It is worthy of note that previous palliatives had proved not to palliate the economic woes of the citizens”.

Acording to him, the $800 million grant is equivalent to N360 billion, which if shared among the 10 million households targetted by Federal Government would amount to N36,000 per household.