Can the Federal Government’s palliatives be managed more effectively? Transportation experts believe so, revealing their to-do list last week. ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE reports
During a recent Zoom webinar organised by the road sub-committee of the Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIOTA) to evaluate the distribution of palliatives in response to the removal of fuel subsidies, the verdict delivered was disheartening and alarming. It pointed towards potential failure. However, as the experts emphasised, a critical turnaround is essential if the Federal Government is genuinely committed to alleviating the burden on ordinary citizens who bear the brunt of this economic policy.
Comprising individuals from academia, industry stakeholders, and seasoned economic experts, CIOTA, a consortium of transportation professionals, convened for a “Roundtable Discussion on Effective and Defective Palliative Delivery Strategies.” Their objective was to provide a practical blueprint that, if embraced, could significantly enhance the distribution of palliatives. Professor Samuel Odewumi, the former Dean of the School of Transport and Logistics at Lagos State University (LASU-SOT-L), and other participants at the webinar passionately advocated for more efficient and sustainable palliative delivery methods. Odewunmi, who also serves as the Chairman of the Road Transport Committee and organised the webinar, asserted that the optimal course of action for the Federal Government would involve subsidizing fertilizers for farmers, supplying crude oil to local refineries, and extending tax relief to manufacturers.
Odewunmi, who intoned that insecurity is still a major menace said: “Everything possible should be done to ensure the security of lives and property in the land, a significant increase in crude production to shore up revenue which would strengthen the naira, expose and prosecute the oil thieves in order to put a stop to the larceny going on in the Niger Delta.”
While speaking on the sub-topic, “Getting it Right: Effective and Sustainable Palliatives,” Odewunmi advocated payment of hardship allowance, sustainable salary increase for workers, payment of retirees’ pensions and arrears and all debt owed workers. He also advocated that the N5 billion given to each of the 36 state governors should be deployed to roll out gas conversion and dispensing infrastructure; and that the government should direct and assist petrol stations to be able to achieve triple simultaneous dispensing of fuel, gas and electricity.
Odewunmi urged the government to carry out palliative work on the roads to make them passable for all, facilitate fuel distribution by the tankers and trailers and use trains to cheaply and securely move wet and solid cargoes to relieve the roads of excessive weight; and increase refined fuel supply. Admitting that the removal of the subsidy is laudable and inevitable, Odewunmi maintained that delaying the total withdrawal till now ends up making the pain more excruciating.
On the defects of the current palliative distribution, Odewunmi said allocating the same amount of N5 billion to all the states of the federation without any regard to their population size or peculiar demands/needs and circumstances is anything but a total lack of depth in thought. Callistus Ibe, a Professor of Transport Management at the Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), Imo State, wondered why the government which pretended to know how to alleviate the suffering of the people could end up fish-feeding them rather than giving them the requisite skills on how to catch fish by themselves. Ibe, who is the Chairman of the Training Committee at CIOTA said like previous governments, the Tinubu administration, in handling palliative distribution, fell to the old gambit of throwing food to the poor to scramble leaving unresolved the fuel consumption and importation conundrum.
Speaking on the topic “Offering the Politicians Suggestions on Palliative Delivery; the Productive Ways of Effective Palliative Delivery,” Prof. Ibe said whenever the transport sector sneezes; all other sectors catch a cold. According to him, the sneezing of the transport sector as a result of fuel subsidy removal has brought intense hardship on the people; leading to an increase in the cost of living and poverty. Prof. Ibe added that a productive way of distributing palliative ought to be by deliberate, focused, persistent, patriotic and sustainable government policies and not tokenism.
On what he called proper ways of delivering palliatives, he talked about initiating greener mass transportation alternatives and productive distribution. He said: “The present act of distributing raw food items to the poor folks badly affected by the removal of fuel subsidy is, at best, a fire brigade approach, as it is neither focused nor persistent and cannot be sustained.” For him, such a step was a non-productive process that is based on consumerism rather than a productive approach that would have reduced the sufferings occasioned by the fuel subsidy removal.
Ibe stated that the consumerism approach might have created a new set of billionaire businessmen and women overnight who buy off these food items in the market; thereby compounding the initial problems the policy is meant to address. For Ibe, the more effective and productive way of reducing the suffering of the people is to reduce the cost of transportation through mass transportation and alternative energy sources. “This productive approach would create jobs, open up employment and income will be earned. This single approach will have positive multiplier effects; it will be focused, persistent, patriotic and sustainable. The operators of the mass transit would be given guidelines to form business combines among themselves through co-operatives and vehicles would be allocated through the co-operatives and not individuals,” among other ways.
While speaking on the NITT template of effective technological palliative, the Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Institute of Transport Technology (NITT) Zaria, Dr Bayero Salih Farah, began by taking participants through the regimes of fuel subsidy in Nigeria, said fuel subsidy became institutionalised in 1977, following the promulgation of the Price Control Act, which made it illegal for some products (including petrol) to be sold above the regulated price. He stated that while the concept of subsidy itself is noble, its administration in Nigeria has been plagued with severe challenges, which include the unsustainable financial cost of the subsidy, economic distortion, smuggling of fuel outside the country, endemic corruption and reduced investment in the downstream sector, among others.
On what he called the NITT Initiative, Dr. Farah said “Saddled with the mandate to drive innovations through the development of new technologies to meet the demands of the transport and logistics industry, the Institute is researching and developing alternative fuel solutions for the transport industry. These initiatives include Bio-fuel from different sources for example, jatropha, hibiscus, organic wastes and sunflower; electric vehicles solutions with emphasis on renewable charging solutions, and autogas (both LPG and CNG) solutions through conversion of fossil fuel engines to autogas fuel engines or hybrid engines.”
Farah also stated that the Institute is adopting a tactical technological transformation and migration to alternative fuel (autogas), especially for the transport and other economic sectors through the production of grassroots manpower to drive the migration and through the provision of enabling facilities, equipment and infrastructure to support the migration. Leveraging the mandates of the Institute and the emerging technology in autogas (LPN and CNG), according to him, the Institute initiates actions that could stimulate vehicle and other equipment conversion in a more formal and standardised way (best practice) across the country.
He said the NITT aspires to provide a pool of qualified technicians for the conversion, repair and maintenance of CNG-powered vehicles; and provide centres across the country for vehicle conversion and training technicians; among others. He also reeled off the NITT vision on palliatives which include making vehicle conversion simple for everyone in the society, minimising the effects of fuel subsidy removal on the poor; promoting autogas as an alternative transportation fuel; providing economic opportunities by creating new jobs and growing a low carbon skills-based through innovation; and creating a flexible, smart and digitised autogas conversion system.
The Executive Secretary of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Dr Muda Yusuf wondered why the government would continue to distribute tokens to the people, when it could deploy the same funds to stimulate the economy, particularly the manufacturing sector; thereby ameliorating the pressure being brought to bear by subsidy removal. He challenged the Federal Government to go beyond the N100 billion loan proposed for the manufacturing sector to introduce tax reliefs and other such initiatives to encourage the productive sector to get back to work and remove the pressure on forex thereby improving the living condition of the average Nigerians who can be productively engaged rather than resorting to a monthly stipend from the government.
Yusuf said no country avoids subsidising its economic growth and no government willingly subjects its economy totally to market forces the way we do in Nigeria, knowing that the capitalist economists exist only for the optimisation of profits. He said now that the Federal Government is making more money, there should be a careful and deliberate redistribution of these resources so that it reaches the nook and cranny of the country and touches the poor from whose pockets these monies are being made.
“The government must ensure that they avoid the situation where new millionaires and billionaires are being made as a result of any of the initiatives aimed at ameliorating the suffering of the poor. The government must be deliberate in ensuring that they assuage the suffering and pains of the very poor which are making more money available for the government to spend,” he said.
The Dean of the School of Transport and Logistics at LASU, Prof. Charles Asenime opined that because palliatives are temporary solutions that ameliorate the pains but do not solve the problem, deliberate attempts must be made to ensure that the palliatives achieve the intentions of the government who put them together. He said the current palliatives are a far cry from what could assuage the pains of the common folks, adding that transportation remains crucial if the government must achieve any success.
The former Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Anthonia Ekpa noted that beyond the provision of mass transit vehicles, the government must work on rural roads, many of which she said are no longer in existence. Dr Ekpa, a former Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transportation said the ministry carried out a road audit and would be in a better position to proffer solutions on how to go about achieving the best result in palliative intervention by the government.
Participants at the webinar agreed that, as a partner in progress, CIOTA should make the communiqué at the end of the webinar available to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as well as Secretaries of State Governments in all the 36 states of the federation and ensure they collaborate with the government for their implementation.
