The Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology and former governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki, has disclosed that the country was losing a total of $2 billion to fake fuel subsidy operators, arguing that the fuel subsidy management in the country was a very big platform for fraud.
Saraki bemoaned that the alleged fraud in the subsidy scheme has been allowed to continue unabated, calling on the incoming administration of General Muhammadu Buhari to completely remove the fuel subsidy and restore normalcy to the petroleum sector.
The senate presidency aspirant stated this yesterday while speakig with journalists in Abuaj, accusing the government of issuing import licenses to very bogus number of companies totaling 82 and being used by oil marketers and government officials to rip off the national treasury on yearly basis.
According to Saraki, it would be better to remove the fuel subsidy and deliver the sector and the citizenry from the grip of racketeers in the industry, who would never allow things to work well because of their personal aggrandizement, adding that subsidy in itself was never a problem to the country but the bad management of the subsidy, which he said had been turned into a huge racket that created the lingering crisis in the oil sector.
He said: “No matter what is happening now, if you go back to look at it, the major issue that dwindled us was the subsidy management. We are talking of about minimum of over $32 billion wasted on it over the last five to six years.
“That is the difference between where we are now and that time. It has impacted on our exchange rate, it is going to impact on our infrastructure, there is no money for capital budget.”
