Independent Media Consultant Mabior Philip Mach receiving an award; Facebook

An independent Media Consultant has suggested that fuel subsidies only need to be properly managed to achieve the desired outcome instead of lifting it.

Last week, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning during his budget speech, appealed to the August House to endorse the approval of the council of ministers to scrap off the fuel subsidy.

The Hon minister went on to say, removing fuel subsidy in the 2018/2019 fiscal year budget would address budget deficits.

However, in his presentation before the Parliament on Tuesday, Mabior Philip argued that, fuel subsidy was introduced to protect the people from the adverse effects of government’s own decisions, including devaluing of the pound.

Mabior Philip added that removing fuel subsidy will increase prices, starting from public transport fares.

He, therefore, stated that, if the new fiscal year budget removes the subsidy on fuel, it will expose the people to the same problems they should have been protected from.

“In the capital here we have people using public transport buses, if you increase the price of fuel, that means transport cost will increase and looking at the level of salaries that is paid to civil servants, it will be used on transport. So effectively it is a civil servant paying him or herself,” Mabior explained.

“It goes from the public vehicles to Nilepet and back to government that’s paying you.”

Mabior Philip further added that, farmers in the states who plant on large scale farms have resorted to using irrigation to minimize the impacts of unreliable rainfall. He says such machines use fuel to operate.

He says paralyzing such iniatives from farmers will mean prolonging dependence on neighbouring countries for food commodities.

“If it has become a problem of government spending a lot of money to maintain these subsidies then who should pay that money. There’s no need of transferring the burden of government’s own decisions on the people,” Mabior argued.

In his presentation, titled: “Enhancing transparency: the necessity of aligning spending with national priorities,” Mabior Philip emphasized that subsidies only need to be redirected and properly managed to achieve its intended goals.

He stressed that, the government should do this until it becomes feasible to channel the funds that will be realized from scrapping off fuel subsidies to a detailed, people-centered social service project in future.