Government to Thread Carefully on Oil Subsidy –Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari says  his administration will handle  subsidies on petroleum products with care.

He said he would carefully review all the submissions he had received on the need to remove the subsidies, adding that subsidies were not the serious problems of  oil sector, but lack of security, sabotage, vandalism, corruption and mismanagement.

Speaking after receiving briefing from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies in the oil sector, Buhari said,  “I have received many literature on the need to remove subsidies, but much of it has no depth. When you touch the price of petroleum products, that has the effect of triggering price rise on transportation, food and rents. That is for those who earn salaries, but there are many who are jobless and will be affected by it.

The president, who promised  to deal decisively with all identified problems of the oil and gas sector, said, “we have to go back to the good old days of transparency and accountability.”

He  directed the NNPC to review existing agreements for the swapping of crude oil for refined products, with a view to injecting more honesty and transparency into the process to reduce costs and further enjoined the corporation' management to do more to improve the supply of liquefied petroleum gas  otherwise known as cooking gas.