President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday admitted that the subsidy regime on imported petrol and kerosene was fraught with abuses that denied ordinary Nigerians the opportunity of really enjoying the socio-economic benefits.
Speaking during the formal launch of the issuance process for the National Electronic Identity Card (e- ID Card) at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the President restated his administration’s commitment to eliminating fraud in programmes targeted at improving the well- being of ordinary Nigerians.
He said government would ensure that the integrity of the current National Electronic Identity Card (EID Card) scheme was not compromised.
The President specifically lamented that despite efforts to ensure that ordinary Nigerians did not suffer following the partial removal of fuel subsidy in January 2012, evidence showed that the rich abused regime in such a way that they turned back to use the benefits to further oppress poor in real terms.
Describing the ID card scheme as one of the tools that would enable government to target social programmes to meet the needs of the ordinary people such as in transportation, President Jonathan explained that since the card could be used for financial transactions and other grassroots-oriented services, he would continue to explore the opportunities availed by it to provide socio-economic services for the poor in the country.
While commending former President Olusegun Obasanjo for signing the National Identity Management Commission Bill into law after several botched attempts to create an agency to handle national identity card management, he urged all Nigerians to ensure that they get the e-ID Card to support efforts aimed at eliminating abuses in the system.
President Jonathan also expressed optimism that the successful implementation of the identity card programme would drastically reduce fraudulent practices in the economy in view of the functionalities of the Card in pension management, electronic financial transactions, electoral process and agricultural inputs distribution, amongst others.
According to him, given also that the National e-ID Cards can be issued and reissued with, ‘proof of identity’, it means that amongst other things, there will be more clarity around all forms of transactions and relationships, including some of the issues around identity- related theft and other such criminal vices and activities that are inimical to our national interests would be better addressed more efficiently.
He said: “I have to specifically thank President Obasanjo who during his tenure signed thee NIMC Act into law. Even though the programme dragged for some time, today is a good story we are telling the world. “I am particularly pleased about NIMC because a number of things we are supposed to do well as a nation, we are not doing well. Sometimes we blame government because of the failure of the system and the credibility of the process.
“If you take the issue of subsidy of transport, what we do is subsidising hydrocarbon (and) it does not go to the ordinary people. Government spends huge sums of money, hundreds of billions of naira every year in the budget, ask the National Assembly. Sometimes it is controversial subsidising kerosene yet is going very high in the market, subsidising PMS (petrol) and so on.
“We are thinking about how do we subsidise transport of the person going to school, the person going to the market, the person moving from Lagos to Enugu or Lagos to Kano. Not paying subsidy that 60 per cent of that will be smuggled out of the country. And those who make the money will come and use that money to induce the people suffering to even riot against government”, President Jonathan added.
The President expressed delight on the commencement of the issuance of the e-ID Card to Nigerians since it would support government’s efforts to alleviate the sufferings of the poor by ensuring direct payment of subsidy to them.
“We are working to the extent that as long as you have your identity, government should be able to directly find a way of making living more meaningful. You cannot do that when you don’t know who is who because it goes to the wrong hands and those people use this money to create more problems even for the very poor people they are exploiting,” he added. – National Mirror.
