FORMER Senate Leader, Chief Victor Ndoma-Egba has urged urgent dismantling of oil subsidy, saying it has provided the biggest independent infrastructure for corruption in the economy.

Chatting with newsmen in Calabar yesterday, Senator Ndoma Egba said, “The issue of subsidy has always been there. What has been the extent of the subsidy? Where does it begin and where does it end.”

“For me, I think the issue of subsidy has provided the biggest independent infrastructure for corruption in this country. And if you must address the issue corruption, you must start by addressing the biggest single infrastructure of corruption, which is the issue of subsidy,” he maintained.

According to Ndoma Egba, “In the next few years, you have never kept subsidy at the level for which it was budgeted. It has always been in excess and the entire subsidy regime, remains very opaque. So for me I think it is a huge opportunity for corruption eradication and if we must fight corruption from the fundamental, then we must go to the issue of subsidy.”

On the argument that the removal of subsidy will affect the common man, the former Senate Leader, who is being speculated will soon move to the All People’s Congress (APC), said, “Now if you say it would affect the price of goods, what about the goods that we have been transporting by lorries that use diesel. So I think it is an issue that must be frontally interrogated and dealt with once and for all. But as a person I don’t believe in subsidy.”

On the calls for devaluation of the naira, he said, “I would say I am not an economist, but I don’t think our economy is sufficiently diversified now to say that the exports are there and we would be generating earnings from them. You first of all must diversify the economy to make sure that there are alternatives that you are producing and manufacturing enough quantities and good enough quality that can compete in the exports market.