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Iran is carrying out a phased removal of subsidies on fuel. Consider its planned approach to the fire brigade approach the clueless PDP government is about to take:
Source

First, by announcing the rollout of the subsidy removal, they did away with ad-hoc decision making. A planned approach is always better than one based on opportunism and whim.

Next, the government asked every individual to fill in forms listing the names of the members in each household, how many cars the household had, details of assets — especially apartments and land, wealth and other sources of income. This data was then cross-checked with existing databases from banks, car registration databanks and property records. Once the list was verified, all the identified persons were asked to open accounts — something that the Unique ID project hopes to do in India in the years to come.

As of February this year, a subsidy compensation of $45 per head per month was credited into each person’s account, irrespective of whether the person was rich or poor. This way, all people are treated alike, rather than attempt to divide populations into economically backward, caste reservation, or specially targeted groups.

“The logic is simple. The rich man may get $45 per month from the government, but will end up paying a few hundred dollars more for the unsubsidised oil and electricity that he now purchases. For the poor man, the $45 per month allows him to decide whether he will opt for bread, or fuel,” said Mohammadi.

To soften the blow for marginal users, each car owner now gets 60 litres of semi-subsidised petrol at Rs15 (equivalent) a litre against an electronic smart card (as against Rs4 a litre during the pre-February 2011 period). The rest he must purchase at the unsubsidised rate of Rs28 per litre. Diesel, which was earlier sold at 60 paise a litre, is now pegged at a non-subsidised rate of Rs7.40 a litre.

To soften the blow for transporters, the government allows for special loans at lower rates of interest for a limited period. For electricity, it follows the practice of telescopic tariffs, commonly followed in India as well, where the price keeps increasing as consumption goes up.

But more interesting is the way it plans to encourage its young to raise a family in ‘decent’ surroundings. “We had a major housing shortage,” says Mohammadi. “And the government saw in that shortage an opportunity to create jobs, carve out a future and to make life easier and better for its people.”

The government decided to give to each child (irrespective of gender), as soon as it is born, a sum of around $950 paid as a trust fund into the child’s account. To that, the parents of the child must add another $20. The amount may not be withdrawn or mortgaged till the child reaches the age of 20. Every year, the government tops up this amount by around $200, with the parents adding another one-third of this amount. With the passage of time, and with the accrual of interest, each child could end up with $60,000-75,000 by the time it reaches the age of 20.

“At that point of time, a boy and girl, should they decide to get married, will have a corpus of around $120,000 which they could use either to purchase a house, or to invest in a business of their own, or in both,” says Mohammadi.

To ensure that there is no shortage of houses, the government has already launched a massive house building exercise where land is given free to developers on a 99-year lease for building houses on the outskirts of cities as extension towns, using pre-approved designs and plans. Developers are also given a subsidised loan of $15,000 per apartment to meet working capital costs. Connectivity is assured with train and bus services planned right at the outset.

“The strategy is good,” says a developer. “Unlike India, where the government charges for land and registration, thereby making houses more expensive and unaffordable, the Iranian government wants to make housing affordable. The flats are built in abundance (currently 1.6 million apartments are under construction, with 600,000 in the final stage of completion) to prevent black-marketeering. What the government ‘loses’ as income from the sale of land, it makes up from taxes later. The idea is to give people a decent start, not to make them paupers at the very start of their family life.

The Structural Adjustment Program in 1986 was endorsed by the World Bank

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When it happened the first time, it was so easy to blame Gen Buhari who came out to speak even before the president spoke. If it has happened again or if it happens again, who will you blame for inaction? The Government, NYSC and the military should have been held accountable and responsible. The worth of the youth to the government is 5 million naira. GEJ can pay that for 5000 youths without batting an eyelid!

Kinikini:
To butress the point made about the quality of the road work being done by Lagos State Contractors, pot holes are emerging on the Ozumba Mbadiwe road in front of Calverton Helicopter. The same road that gulped whooping 2 Billion Naira per Kilometre. You can deceive people many times but you cannot deceive them all the time.

That's my main grouse with the administration. I know 2 roads that was constructed during Fashola's first term that have massive potholes now. It's disgraceful.

There are few men nowadays. Ladies nowadays end up marrying boys/adolescents who have not or will never mature into men.
Besides, it's not a black man's problem!

MeandSum:
i stand by that statement. unemployment is up everywhere (even China had issues with this -read http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7843947.stm).
on the other hand, most of the European countries required a bailout of some sort during the same period.

All you need to do is check Nigeria's current account balance #14 and the highest in Africa. Higher than all the European countries except that of Germany, Russia, Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html?countryName=Japan&countryCode=ja&regionCode=eas&rank=2#ja).

I'm sure most of those countries will overtake us again once their economy gets back on track but so far Nigeria is doing better than they are doing.

I'm not an economist but my understanding of current account balance obtained from Wikipedia is the sum of the balance of trade (exports minus imports of goods and services), net factor income (such as interest and dividends) and net transfer payments (such as foreign aid). This, I don't think, is a suitable measure for how well a country is weathering the financial crisis. The 2006 figures (http://www.photius.com/rankings/economy/current_account_balance_2006_0.html) show a similar trend and the global crises wasn't upon us then. We didn't fare better, I believe we fared worse and are still being worse off.

MeandSum:
as far as I can see, Nigeria did a lot better than some western countries in weathering the crises. That should mean something.

Nigeria did not do any better in facing the global crises. Even if we do not have a reliable method of measuring unemployment and other economic parameters, it doesn't take much to realise that unemployment is at its worst level. Oil prices have been at record levels however this has not translated in anyway to economic gain for Nigeria rather politicians are feeding fat and increasing our debt with nothing to show. He that is down need fear no fall

D dude hasn't spoken. It's Sambo that spoke

If you took my shut up literally, then I obviously won't be talking to you in real life.
Anyway, it's offensive calling Buhari's support base as "largely made up of religious extremists or half baked fools".

@mikeansy
Then shut the f up and stop insulting people who stand for something. What the heck does fan of Nigeria mean?
You can stay still on your chair in your house looking for Mr. Perfect with no flaws and zero mistakes to rule Nigeria rather than bring down people who have made efforts to cause positive change.

@mikeansy
What are you? Who are you a fan of?

Jesus called the religious rulers of His day brood of vipers, whitewashed sepulchres and other names. The bible is filled with examples of name calling both in the new and old testaments. He has every moral right to call any one a bastard, he's a free man and a prophet.

texazzpete:
Learn how to read. The main reasons for the high prices of cement are the activities of the cartel of importers and manufacturers. Throwing manufacturing and importing open to all will crash the price to manageable levels, but your god GEJ will not take this step. Instead they offer you crumbs and here you are licking their boots and grovelling.

Thank you o, I tire for Nigerians and their reasoning.

^^
How would any sane person vote pdp. What sort of country is this?

The fools taking us for fools uncovered a plot, even gave us specifics when and where the plot was hatched. The next action the fools will take is to release a press statement as if this is some threat originating from a foreign land and the all powerful SSS, DMI and whatever names they are called got wind of it. If these fools know their job or are speaking the truth, they would have made some arrests by now.

Walahi, ode ni e

You may hate Buhari all you like. But why will you vote PDP? You say you are voting for Jonathan and not PDP but why will you do that? Jonathan has proven to be inept and without balls. He stands for nothing. He has shown his color as someone who dines with the corrupt. If you call Buhari desperate, what will you call Jonathan? Jonathan released a murder suspect to vote for him at the PDP congress, his wife distributed rice to buy people's conscience, Why will you vote for Jonathan?
Look at most PDP controlled states, Look at Bayelsa where Jonathan once governed, What do they have to show?

Voting for PDP is a vote for the status quo. A vote where few benefit at the expense of many. I am so annoyed that some people even consider voting for PDP, PDP keeps raping us in the ass and we are not screaming. This time, we are begging to be raped by voting Jonathan