APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has said that the Federal Government of Nigeria has saved N1 trillion in the two months since the removal of the petrol subsidy.
Tinubu said in a nationwide broadcast on Monday in Abuja that the money saved would now be channeled into intervention programmes targeting families nationwide
“In a little over two months, we have saved over a trillion Naira that would have been squandered on the unproductive fuel subsidy which only benefitted smugglers and fraudsters,” Tinubu said.
“Our economy is going through a tough patch and you are being hurt by it. The cost of fuel has gone up. Food and other prices have followed it. Households and businesses struggle. Things seem anxious and uncertain. I understand the hardship you face. I wish there were other ways. But there is not. If there were, I would have taken that route as I came here to help not hurt the people and nation that I love.
“What I can offer in the immediate is to reduce the burden our current economic situation has imposed on all of us, most especially on businesses, the working class and the most vulnerable among us,” he said.
According to him, though the palliatives are late in coming, Nigerians should “look beyond the present temporary pains and aim at the larger picture”.
“All of our good and helpful plans are in the works. More importantly, I know that they will work,” he said, promising to get the nation out of this economic turbulence through the measures his administration has taken so far.
The palliatives and interventions contained in the broadcast to alleviate the pain of millions of Nigerians, included N500 billion approved from an $800 million World Bank loan earlier requested by former President Muhammadu Buhari for a national social safety net programme, N8,000 monthly cash transfers to 12 million households spanning six months.
N75 billion palliative for the manufacturing sector, 75 businesses to benefit within a nine-month period spanning the third quarter of 2023 to the first quarter of next year.
Others are strengthening the manufacturing sector, increasing its capacity to expand and creating good-paying jobs, spending N75 billion between July 2023 and March 2024.
“Our objective is to fund 75 enterprises with great potential to kick-start a sustainable economic growth, accelerate structural transformation and improve productivity.
GIK/APA