Big Interview
No Going Back on Tax Reform! Declares Tinubu in First Media Chat
...Says: Fuel Subsidy Removal in Nigeria's Best Interest
In his first media chat since he assumed office almost 19 months ago, President Bola Tinubu, Monday night, sensationally declared that he had no regrets about his decision to scrap payment of fuel subsidy moments after he was sworn in as President on May 29, 2023.
In an hour-long nationally televised media interview, held in his private residence on Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, the President rather insisted that subsidy removal was one of the best decisions he took in the best interest of the country. Nigeria cannot be playing Father Christmas to neighbouring countries, he added.
“I don’t have any regrets whatsoever in removing petrol subsidy,” Tinubu said during the interview. “We were spending our future. We were just deceiving ourselves. That reform was necessary.”
Still justifying his action despite its spiralling effects on cost of living, the President said the removal, coupled with selling crude to indigenous refineries in naira, had stimulated competition within the oil and gas sector of the economy, resulting now in the gradual crashing of the pump price of petrol.
“The market is being saturated,” Tinubu continued. “No monopoly, no oligopoly, a free market economy flowing.”
When asked if he would consider imposing price control to neutralise the effects of price speculators and unscrupulous middlemen who trigger and fuel inflation, the President said a categorical NO!
Tinubu restated his firm belief in market forces regulating prices of commodities following the law of demand and supply.
“I don’t believe in price control,” he continued. “We will work hard to supply the market. It is about supply and demand.”
On tax reforms, which bill the National Assembly stepped down for wider consultations, President Tinubu said there was no going back, insisting that the economy cannot be revived with the “old broken book.”
“Tax reform is here to stay,” the President maintained. “We cannot just continue to do what we did in the yesteryears in today’s economy. We cannot retool this economy with the old broken blocks, and I believe I have that capacity. That is why I went into the race.”
“I am focused on what Nigeria needs and what I must do for Nigeria. It is not just going to be Eldorado for everybody. But the new dawn is here, I am convinced; and you should be convinced.”
Tinubu commiserated with the families and friends of those who lost their lives during the recent stampedes in Ibadan, Abuja and Okija in Anambra State. He prayed God to comfort them.
Reminded that corruption is still 3ndemic in the country and was he making it a priority to eliminate it.
The President said his administration was fighting the monster through policies targeting the root causes rather than the symptoms of corruption.
Rounding up, President Tinubu thanked Nigerians for the confidence they reposed in him by voting for him overwhelmingly during last year’s Presidential elections.
“I do not take it for granted,” he said.
