THE United States government has endorsed the current effort by the Federal Government to deregulate the downstream sub-sector of the oil industry but insisted that there was need for government to deal with the issue of corruption even as the deregulation would only become relevant to the ordinary man when it result in price cut.
Speaking at a briefing at the United States Embassy in Abuja on Tuesday, the Coordinator, State Department for International Energy Affairs, Mr. David Goldwyn, said the move by the government was an essential step towards promoting development but stated that the government must consider how to subsidise what the citizens pay for electricity.
Mr. Goldwyn, prior to joining the US government, was president of Goldwyn International Strategies LLC (GIS), an international energy consulting firm, from 2001-2009 and advised Nigeria’s Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on its implementation programme.
He is the author of “Drilling Down: The Civil Society Guide to Extractive Industry Revenues and the EITI” for the Revenue Watch Institute, in addition to heading the sole US firm certified to rate countries on their compliance with the EITI rules.