The International Monetary Fund, IMF has named the fear of political resistance, widespread corruption and pressure from interested groups is hampering the removal of fuel subsidy in Nigeria.
The IMF said this in its ‘Nigeria: Selected Issues Paper’ report, which was prepared by a staff team of the Fund as background documentation for its periodic consultation with Nigeria.
The report read in part, “This fuel subsidy has taken up considerable ,explicit or implicit budget costs, constituting inefficient use of resources that could have been spent more effectively on pro-poor interventions in the economy.
In January this year, the Federal Government decided not to remove fuel subsidy until after 18 months as a result of threats of protests by the Nigerian Labour Congress and other interest groups.
The IMF has also said that Nigeria will likely depend on overdrafts from the Central Bank of Nigeria to fund its proposed petrol subsidy bill/and that
that the fuel subsidy negatively affects the country’s fiscal position, increasing the fiscal deficit.
SOURCE: orangefm.com.ng
