The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has stated that the Federal Government was not considering removing fuel subsidy at this time.
The Minister made this known during a television interview on Sunday night.
This is after labour unions and student unions across the country called on the government to drop the plan as they threatened to lead protests should the subsidy on PMS be removed.
He revealed that the government was not even considering the removal.
Sylva said, “We are still trying to manage this bumpy start. We have not been able to get to that 100 per cent removal of subsidy from the foreign exchange end.
“If we were to take it out completely and allow people to access foreign exchange from the parallel market and allow people to import the product, the price of the pump will even be more.
“The federal government, knowing the impact it will have on the people, decided that they are still going to manage this situation.
“If we continue to preserve the workforce, then it means that we are serious about getting to use this workforce in the future. If you lay them off and fix the refineries, you will have to go looking for them to employ again. It is because we want to fix those refineries that we have kept them,” he explained.
