Oscarline Onwuemenyi
05 November 2015, Sweetcrude, Abuja – President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday scrapped the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P, with immediate effect.
The president ordered the Presidential Committee and workers of the agency to close operations.
The President’s order was delivered to the SURE-P Committee through a letter from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF.
President Buhari in line with his campaign promise ordered a probe into the activities, funding and expenditure of the agency.
During his messages on the campaign trail, then Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.) as the APC presidential candidate had vowed to scrap SURE-P describing the agency established by the Jonathan administration as a conduit for corruption practices and siphoning government’s funds into private pockets.
The President, in the letter, also directed the panel to wind down the operations of SURE-P on or before November 30, 2015 and submit a comprehensive report of its activities to the Presidency.
Ordering the winding down of the program President Muhammadu Buhari directed the panel charged with the task to commence the process of winding down operations of SURE-P to make sure they adhere to that date.
Former President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the SURE-P Committee on the 13th of February 2012 under the leadership of Dr. Christopher Kolade with a mandate from the President to the SURE-P Committee is to “deliver service with integrity” and “restore people’s confidence in the government.”
The Jonathan-led administration had established the SURE-P in response to the subsidy removal from petroleum products in 2011. The programme was meant to reinvest the Federal Government’s share of the savings arising from the reduction of subsidies into programmes and initiatives that would go a long way to ease the pain of subsidy removal and create a better life for Nigerians.
Kolade later resigned his appointment citing personal reasons, but many watchers opined that Kolade resigned because of the wanton sleaze he encountered in the agency.
The SURE-P was designed along the line of the Transformation Agenda of the former President, the life span of which is 2012 – 2015.
