Again FG Addresses Fuel Subsidy Issue, Its Removal, Next Move
- The controversial petrol subsidy removal would soon be a thing of the past, the minister of finance, budget has planning has said
- The minister said that the federal government would remove fuel subsidy just like it did it electricity tariff in Nigeria
- Zainab Ahmed noted that the Nigerian government plans to fully deregulate the oil and gas sector by the second half of the year 2022
The Nigerian government has said that it will soon remove the controversial fuel subsidy, Daily Trust reports.
The minister of finance, budget and national planning, Zainab Ahmed, said that the federal government had quietly and successfully removed electricity subsidy and would do the same with fuel.
Source: Facebook
Speaking at a meeting of African Finance Ministers and the International Monetary Fund, Ahmed said subsidy was only factored in the first half of the year in the 2022 budget.
She said that the federal government is looking at complete deregulation of the oil sector by the second half of 2023.
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Her words:
“In our 2022 budget, we only factored in subsidy for the first half of the year; the second half of the year, we are looking at complete deregulation of the sector, saving foreign exchange and potentially earning more from the oil and gas industry”.
Ahmed said having created so many mixed reactions, the executive had put a hold on subsidy removal.
Subsidy and 2022 budget
According to her, the executive had sent a supplementary budget to the National Assembly with the removal of subsidy as the next target.
The minister added that the removal of petrol subsidy was hindered by COVID and forthcoming elections.
She said:
“We are cleaning up our subsidies. We had a setback; we were to remove the fuel subsidy by July this year but there was a lot of pushback from the polity.
"We have elections coming and because of the hardship that companies and citizens went through during the COVID-19 pandemic, we just felt that the time was not right, so we pulled back on that."
“But we have been able to quietly implement subsidy removal in the electricity sector and as we speak, we don’t have subsidies in the electricity sector."
"We did that incrementally over time by carefully adjusting the prices at some levels while holding the lower levels down.”
PDP chieftain reveals 1 major thing Buhari must do to end fuel scarcity in Nigeria
A chieftain of Nigeria's main opposition party, the PDP has reacted to the lingering fuel scarcity bedevilling the nation.
According to him, President Muhammadu Buhari can solve the issue if he fixes the nation's refineries that are currently in a bad state.
Although the queue in most filling stations across the country has reduced yet, the price of petrol has increased from N165 to N200 and above, per litre.
Legit. ng's prediction on fuel scarcity
Legit.ng had earlier predicted that despite the release of over 2 billion litres of petrol for distribution, Nigerians would continue to struggle with the scarcity.
Black marketers have continued to smile to the banks as a litre of fuel sold in jerrican (Black market) goes for between N500 to N1000.
This has raised concerns among Nigerians, civil societies and top government opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who have now called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign for failing the country.
Source: Legit.ng
