A de­bate is un­der­way in this oil- and gas-pro­duc­ing coun­try of ours, and has been so for some time, as to whether the "sub­sidy" cit­i­zens are af­ford­ed should be re­duced or elim­i­nat­ed al­to­geth­er. While we de­bate, the sub­sidy for pre­mi­um gas has al­ready been re­duced, and the omen is that sub­sidy re­duc­tion could be­come an across-the-board mea­sure af­fect­ing all types of fu­el some­time in the not-too-dis­tant fu­ture.

While a lot of our eco­nom­ic brains see the log­ic of bring­ing an end to our gas sub­sidy, we should take heed of the log­ic of for­mer Niger­ian pe­tro­le­um min­is­ter Prof Tam David-West, which is an in­ter­est­ing con­tra­dic­tion to what is emerg­ing from our own think tank on the mat­ter. Put blunt­ly, David-West says, "Com­ing to pe­tro­le­um, there is no oil sub­sidy. Oil sub­sidy in Nige­ria is a fic­tion; it doesn't ex­ist; it is a fraud!"

To fur­ther ex­plain his point on what is a sub­sidised item, David-West says that if gari (a Niger­ian sta­ple made from cas­sa­va tu­bers and pro­duced in Nige­ria) is sold for Niger­ian 10 cents but be­cause of a poor crop one year Nige­ria had to im­port it for say 20 cents and then sold it back to the Niger­ian peo­ple for 10 cents, then the gov­ern­ment could right­ly claim it was sub­si­dis­ing gari to the tune of 10 cents.

David-West, there­fore, re­jects the idea that an item such as oil that is pro­duced in Nige­ria could right­ly be re­gard­ed as sub­sidised be­cause for­eign com­pa­nies are re­fin­ing it and then re­turn­ing it to Nige­ria to sell it at a high­er price. Un­der his watch as min­is­ter, he boast­ed he es­tab­lished three re­finer­ies so that this kind of ex­ploita­tion did not oc­cur and the idea of a sub­sidy was an an ir­rel­e­vant fac­tor in the price equa­tion.

David-West, how­ev­er, did not lim­it his analy­sis to just the gas price and sub­sidy, but he al­so ex­pressed his views on the po­lit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of tak­ing away the sub­sidy in Nige­ria. He said, "No gov­ern­ment should ex­ist if it can't serve the peo­ple, be­cause gov­ern­ment is a trust."

He went on to quote Ed­mund Burke who said that gov­ern­ment is a con­trivance of hu­man wis­dom, and that wis­dom should be used to sat­is­fy the peo­ple's needs. Any gov­ern­ment that can't sat­is­fy the needs of the peo­ple is ir­rel­e­vant and must be over­thrown and kicked out.

Right next door to us is Venezuela, the coun­try known world­wide as the land of 12-cent gas. When Ch&aa­cute;vez first came to pow­er in 1999, the gas price was al­ready at 12 cents. Now in his fourth term, Ch&aa­cute;vez has re­fused all sug­ges­tions that he does some­thing about the 11 bil­lion-dol­lar-a-year sub­sidy that his peo­ple en­joy.

Gas is ac­tu­al­ly cheap­er than wa­ter and milk in Venezuela, but what tem­pers pres­i­den­tial in­ter­fer­ence in that sec­tor is that the last time it was just re­port­ed that the sub­sidy was to be re­duced in 1989, thou­sands of Venezue­lans died as a re­sult of ri­ot­ing that fol­lowed the news.

It is one thing to see is­sues from a pure­ly eco­nom­ic view­point, but every gov­ern­ment must al­so be for­ev­er cog­nisant of the hu­man fac­tor, of the pos­si­ble hard­ships that its cit­i­zens might en­dure based on its de­ci­sions, of the po­lit­i­cal con­se­quences.

T&T has a record-break­ing num­ber of cars on its roads for the sim­ple rea­son that for decades un­der the pre­vi­ous regimes an ad­e­quate, re­li­able trans­porta­tion sys­tem was nev­er de­vel­oped. New York's sub­way sys­tem could charge US$2 for a to­ken that al­lows one to trav­el from one end of it to the next. Be­cause of the con­ve­nience of tak­ing the train in NY, be­cause of its re­li­a­bil­i­ty, the mil­lion­aires and bil­lion­aires of the city park their cars and head for the sub­way.

We have noth­ing to com­pare with such a pub­lic ser­vice lux­u­ry, and so while we try to get there, no gov­ern­ment should see the car-own­ing cit­i­zen­ry as en­e­mies of the State and so view high­er gas prices to them as some­thing they de­serve; that it good for them; why they had to go buy a car.

While we try to bal­ance the eco­nom­ics, we should take Ch&aa­cute;vez's mor­tal fear of in­ter­fer­ing with his coun­try's cheap gas and David-West's warn­ing on the mat­ter: "When the poor man weeps, the tears go to heav­en and come down with burn­ing fire and con­sume his en­e­mies; and that is what will hap­pen (in Nige­ria) if the gas sub­sidy is re­moved."

Pos­si­bly al­so sub­scrib­ing to that fear are the Ira­ni­ans and Saud­is whose gas prices are 40 and 44 cents per gal­lon, re­spec­tive­ly. In these coun­tries, the cit­i­zens con­sid­er cheap gas a right, not a priv­i­lege.

L Sid­dhartha Orie

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