afrol News, 2 March - The Conference of Nigeria Political Parties has decided to join forces with Labour and other progressive organisations to bar President Umaru Musa Yar'adua's government from imposing the proposed oil subsidy cut.

According to CNPP the total deregulation of the Nigerian economy's downstream oil sector was not a justly decision, saying it would jeopardize lives of ordinary Nigerians.

Nigeria Federal government last Friday announced its decision to cut subsidy on petroleum products, saying the 2009 budget had excluded the huge expense from the government purse.

“The recommendation of the Presidential Steering Committee on the Global Financial Crisis for withdrawal of oil subsidy in the midst of abject poverty, decayed infrastructure, poor electricity and gross unemployment is insensitive, enslavement and anti-people," said the CNPP statement.

CNPP has also cautioned that selling the Petroleum Refineries as scrap without prosecuting those who collected billions of dollars for their repair which never took place, saying this was the greatest crime against the people of Nigeria.

Nigerian government has decided to sell four refineries to cushion the country against the global economic meltdown and reduce the high rate of corruption on the country’s most valuable resources that earn the country almost 90 percent on its national revenues.

"Finally it is our considered view that it is not enough to tell us how N1.63 trillion (US$6,8 billion) was used to subsidize oil in the last three years or N640 billion (US$4,354 billion) in 2008, but how much was realized, how much was fleeced away," the opposition party statement said.

CNPP has further accused the government of shielding the corrupt senior government officials, for subsidizing inefficiency, fraud and racketeering, and also consolidating looting of the country's resources for the past ten years.

The party said it is worried that there is insufficient information on the activities of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), especially as it relates to leakages in oil revenue.

Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, which earns 90 percent of its export earnings from crude has been forced to review its spending plans to deal with the effects of the global economic crunch and plummeting crude prices.

It had its oil cut down by a fifth after insurgency took its toll in the oil rich Niger Delta with rebels groups claiming to be fighting for their fair share of the oil proceeds from government.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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