UPDATE ON THE REMOVAL OF THE FERTILIZER SUBSIDY
The Federal Government has refuted the claims that it has removed the subsidy on fertilizer as reported by some media recently.
Chairman, Technical Committee on Fertilizer, Professor Victor Chude stated this when he said “the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), Chief Audu Ogbe had been misquoted by some media.
The Professor who was representing the Minister, Chief Audu Ogbe stated this at a post media briefing marking the conclusion of the 2nd West Africa Fertilizer Stakeholders Forum in Abuja, yesterday.
According to him, “the report alleging that the minister had said that Nigeria was going to withdraw from administering subsidy was not true” As he revealed that government would only suspend the administration of the process over a period of time to further enhance the process.
In his words “The minister was misquoted yesterday morning saying Nigeria will withdraw from subsidy,that is not true”
He said “The minister said Nigeria will withdraw from administering subsidy over a period of time, on condition that the right formulation of fertiliser is made available to farmers, so as to ensure that farmers have access to credits at single digits interest rates of about 5% and get value for their produce towards ensuring( the farmers) profitability”
Prof. Chude added that “the Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES) will still be supported with some modification in its running. We are still going to implement it the way it was done in the past while looking for other ways to further enrich the process”
Professor Chude recalled that “in the past there were lots of corrupt practices in the fertilizer sector which were reduced to a great extent by the use of the E- wallet system through the efforts of the
last administration by Dr Akinwumi Adesina “who did his best to reduce the corruption by introducing the E-Wallet system as a way of administering the subsidy”
He noted that even though great strides were made in the struggle, “we are really not there yet, the new administration will like to further minimise the corrupt practices associated with the fertiliser.
