Daily Trust (Abuja)
5 November 2009
Abuja — The Chairman of the Lagos Business School Professor Pat Utomi has called on the Federal government to give tax holiday for companies that would set up refineries and in Nigeria.
Utomi spoke yesterday in Lagos in reaction to the proposed deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry by the Federal government.
He said such gesture would solve the perennial scarcity bedeviling the nation. He also suggested that the Federal government should tax heavily the profit accruable from petroleum product import into the country. He said: "We could resolve this issue within a period of three years and get the country to become a net exporter of refined product. The fabled invisible hand that turns in favour of profit would take productive capital out of the import trade and not only build the refineries that we need but also maintain them."
He commended the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) for its resolute stand against the deregulation policy. He appealed to the Federal government to settle the controversy surrounding the petroleum subsidy.
According to him, the present generations of Nigerians and others yet to be born would look on this administration with gratitude if it can find the real source of the problems bedevilling the petroleum sector. "The perennial hiccups occasioned by dearth of products that this nation is needlessly thrown into are disruptive in the extreme of the focus required for national development. We call for an open, honest and rewarding dialogue between the NLC and the Federal Government, as well as other stakeholders in the petroleum sector."
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
