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Lesson From Venezuela - Politics - Nairaland

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Lesson From Venezuela by bayo1(m): 9:59am On Dec 23, 2009
The Venezuelan Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Enrique Arrundell, recently offered a piece of advice that should serve as food for thought and basis of future policies and actions in the management of Nigeria‘s petroleum resources. The ambassador, during a visit to the Information and Communications Minister, Professor Dora Akunyili, candidly counselled that Nigeria should not hand over its economy to foreigners in the name of deregulation.

He was responding to a request by Akunyili that he should encourage businessmen from Venezuela to come and establish refineries in Nigeria so that they could benefit from the proposed deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry. Akunyili presented Nigeria’s petroleum sector as a goldmine from which Venezuelans could reap bounteous harvests.

[b]Arrundell, in his response, said Nigeria should first and foremost make its refineries work. He stated that there had been no fuel price increase in his country in the last 20 years and that it cost only $1.02 (N153.00) to fill the tank of a car. Venezuela, with a population of 27.9 million, has six refineries which are functioning at full capacity.

According to the ambassador, the country has 18 refineries in the United States and 18,000 gas stations on the West Coast and they are all in the hands of Venezuelans.

“Before 1999, we had three or four foreign companies working with us,  They were taking 80 per cent and giving us 20 per cent. Now we have 90 per cent while they have 10 per cent and there are 22 countries working with us on that condition. so, it is important that Nigeria takes control of her resources. We have no illiterate people. We have 17 new universities totally free. I graduated from the university without paying one cent and took three meals everyday because we have the resources. We want the resources of the Nigerian people for Nigerians. It is enough, minister; it is enough,  If you are not handling your resources, how are you going to handle your country?” the ambassador wondered with apparent concern.[/b]

That Nigeria’s oil is being blatantly mismanaged is an open secret. That the vast majority of Nigerians do not benefit from this natural endowment is a fact that is not councealed even from the residents of the North and South poles. The Venezuelan ambassador is thus not saying anything new. What makes his passionate expressions of concern significant is that the representative of another oil-producing country has come to say it boldly and clearly that oil is meant to be a blessing and not a curse that it is in Nigeria.

THE current price of petrol is 225 per cent higher than what it was 10 years ago and the government is a ploy to impose another price hike in the name of deregulation. The rulers are not worried that every fuel price hike has worsened the economic situation and made life more burdensome for the common man. Almost all the small and medium-scale businesses have gone under. The large-scale enterprises have been closing shop at an alarming rate because electricity is not available and diesel is not affordable.

NIGERIA simply collects rents on the basis of whatever is declared by the oil companies. There are no accurate figures either on crude oil export or on imported refined products because the weights and measures required for these purposes are not in place. The gauges at the storage facilities where products are received do not work. Whatever the ships declare is what is taken and on which the so-called subsidy is paid. The entire process stinks.

IT is on the basis of this defective arrangement that the government claims to have paid N955 billion as subsidy in the last three years. The same government has admitted that the process of fuel importation is fraught with inefficiency and fraud. It has not been able to find the wisdom or muster the courage to smash the vicious cartel that is responsible for all the abuses. Its only feasible option is to add to the price of fuel under the guise of deregulation. That more companies will close down and relocate to neighbouring countries does not matter to the government. That unemployment and aggravated insecurity will be the natural concomitants is immaterial to the people in authority.

So far, only a microscopic minority the political elite and their business cronies and collaborators in the bureaucracy have been benefiting from Nigeria’s oil. A succession of harmful and self-serving policies has created a situation of misery in the midst of abundance for the populace. It is shameful that a cabinet minister needs a foreigner’s tutorial to get educated that her country’s resources should be used to improve the lot of its people.

As a result of efficient managerial and sense of service on the part of the country’s leadership, the people of Venezuela have been the primary beneficiaries of their country’s oil. The economy is buoyant. Education is free and qualitative. Health care is no problem — doctors go to people’s houses to look after their health. In Nigeria, nothing works. Even the president goes abroad for medical treatment. Professionals have been migrating to other lands in search of fulfilment. The rate at which the youth have been emigrating is mind-boggling. Akunyili should have asked the Venezuelan ambassador for political and economic managers and not for investors in one sector of the oil industry.

As stated in our previous editorials, we see nothing wrong in deregulation. But we see everything wrong in the way it is about to be implemented. The government is just about to transfer the cost of the inefficiency and fraud in the process of importation to the ordinary man. Before deregulation could serve the people’s interest, the country must have adequate refining capacity and the cesspool of corruption known as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation must be cleared up.

                                                              http://www.tribune.com.ng/23122009/edit.html
Re: Lesson From Venezuela by patani(m): 3:05pm On Dec 24, 2009
I dont know what to say, Im seriuosly confused, and I think revolution is the only option we have left, With revolution and a serious minded leader Nigeria will be beter in just few years

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