Nigerian govt says IMF’s call for subsidy removal is ‘good’ but…

The federal government has described as laudable the call for subsidy removal by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed gave the nod while responding to the call by the Bretton Woods on Thursday on the sideline of the IMF/World Bank meetings currently taking place in Washington DC, United States of America.

IMF had recommended the removal of fuel subsidy to boost revenue and improve government’s spending to build more hospitals, roads, schools, and to support education and health for the people.

Ahmed said, “It’s good advice, but we have to implement it in a way that will be successful as well as sustainable.

Read also: IMF MD asks Nigeria to remove fuel subsidy

“We are not in the position to wake up one night and just remove subsidy. We have to educate the people, we have to show the Nigerian citizens what the replacement for this subsidy will be.

“So, we have a lot of work to do because subsidy removal has to be gradual and the public has to be well informed,” she said.

She added, “We spoke on the need to build more fiscal buffers because of the slow down in global economic growth and partly by the natural incidences that are happening around the world like the cyclone in Southern Africa.

“We are discussing between ourselves on how we can better manage our finances and also how we must curtail the increases in our debt.

“For Nigeria, we are asking the World Bank to review some of the initiatives that involves them looking at implementation systems when they are providing funding for infrastructure.”

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