Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar says the Federal Government is being dishonest about the deregulation of the petroleum industry.
Declaring open a 2-day First Year Ministerial Performance Review Retreat in Abuja on Monday, President Muhammadu Buhari had said that there would be negative consequences if the government continued with the business of fixing or subsidising the prices of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) known as petrol.
He said that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a severe downturn in the funds available to finance the nations’ budget and also severely hampered the government’s capacity.
Represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Buhari noted that one of the steps government took at the beginning of the crisis in March when oil prices collapsed at the height of the global lockdown was the deregulation of PMS.
But in a tweet, Atiku expressed doubt that the sector has been deregulated.
He noted that the price of oil in the global market has plummeted and is reflected in the pump price in the US and Europe.
Atiku wondered why the reverse was the case in Nigeria.
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“I am a businessman. I look at things from an economic perspective. Questions beg answers.
“The price of crude is down from where it was in 2019. In the US and Europe, fuel prices are far lower than they were in 2019.
“If we truly deregulated, shouldn’t fuel price have dropped?” he queried.
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