Subsidy Removal:6 Ways To Survive This Challenging Time-Eaglessightnews

Subsidy Removal:6 Ways To Survive This Challenging Time-Eaglessightnews

With the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, many Nigerians have been feeling the brunt.

Families are cutting down costs of food and household fuel and many companies are investing in online technology solutions to improve their work-from-home model while navigating the new economic realities.

Also read:Fuel Subsidy:SERAP Sues Tinubu Over Failure To Probe Missing Fuel…

Since the President, Bola Tinubu, declared in his inaugural address on May 29 that subsidy was gone, the price of fuel has skyrocketed by almost 300 per cent.

This has also resulted in rising prices of goods and services.

Whereas, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that over 133 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty.

Over 70 per cent Nigerians, according to the World Poverty Clock, an online poverty calculator, live below the poverty line.

Although former President Muhammadu Buhari talked about an $800m World Bank facility aimed at cushioning the effects of the removal of fuel subsidy, models have not been put in place to fashion out ways of identifying those who need it, how much they need and the mode of disbursements.

A stay-at-home mum in Delta State, Mrs Deborah Fabie-Dan, while speaking to our correspondent in a telephone interview, said she had to cut the cost of feeding to be able to afford more household fuel as her house ran mostly on generating sets because of epileptic power supply in her community.

“I had to be creative,” she said. “I did not wait for my husband to tell me to cut costs. When I went to the market and saw how things had increased dramatically, I told myself that we needed to, as a family, make some sacrifices.

“I cut down the cost of our monthly feeding and reworked our timetable. I and my husband are both civil servants, so it is out of the equation that we will earn extra cash,” she added.

Cut budget

Speaking on ways to navigate the new normal, a personal finance expert, Eucharia Ogu, said families must begin to cut the cost of running their homes if they wanted to survive the regime.

“The major fact is that sacrifices would have to be made by all. All expenses must be cut down by almost 40 per cent. The budget spending on food and other supplies would have to go down as well.

“If the family needs to sit down and do a meeting on what has to go and how, they can sit down to do that. But, it has to be done and fast, too, because the prices of food items will increase or decrease according to market forces,” she said.

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6 ways to survive fuel subsidy removal