By Chesa Chesa
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday presented a bill of N3 trillion for petrol subsidy in 2022, to the The Federal Executive Council (FEC).
This follows the decision by President Muhammedu Buhari to suspend for several months the plan to completely remove subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), ordinarily known as petrol.
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, briefed State House Correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting chaired by Buhari in Abuja.
She said FEC considered the request to make additional funding provision to enable government to meet incremental fuel subsidy payment in the 2022 budget.
The Minister also recalled that only N443 billion was presently available in the 2022 budget meant to accommodate subsidy from January to June.
According to Ahmed, with the realities on ground including the present hardship faced by Nigerians and the lack of structures to support subsidy removal, the NNPC made a request for N3 trillion from the Ministry of Finance for 2022.
“What this means is that we have to make incremental provision of N2.557 trillion to be able to meet subsidy requirement which is averaging about N270 billion per month.”
She said the request was considered by FEC which directed the Ministry to approach the National Assembly for an amendment to the fiscal framework as well as the budget.
She further revealed that Council has approved an amendment to be transmitted to the National Assembly to repeal clauses 10 and 11 concerning the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) operations in the 2022 budget and as well restore what the lawmakers had deleted amounting to N103 billion.
