Following the recent adjustment of petrol prices by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company, many Nigerians have questioned the previous government’s claims that subsidy has provided for in the first half of 2023, which was expected to end June 30.
However, it has been discovered that ever since February 2022 the NNPC has been providing subsidized petroleum to the public without the funding of the government.
Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC, in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Thursday stated that the company was yet to be refunded by the government for subsidised fuel, despite being budgeted for in 2022 and for the first half of 2023.
According to Kyari, “There’s a provision of N3.7 trillion in 2023, for up to half a year, but not a single naira of that has been funded.
“This is not an issue of using the money removed from subsidy for something else. Nigeria no longer has the resources to back this up.”
In an earlier statement, he said “provision was made irrespective that the law said we should provide petroleum at the market price. Government said ‘Look, we will provide the money for subsidy, it is not the business of the NNPC to worry about this’.
“We agreed completely and executed that will of government in 2022, and again in 2023 – up to half year – government still made another provision of subsidy to enable NNPC continuously supply at the subsidised rate but the complication is that you can make provision in the budget but you have to finance it and that financing part of it is absent.”
Kyari further stated that there was no set band price for petrol and prices would vary across the nation.
“There is no band. You see that price in Maduguri is different form Kano, different from Sokoto, different from Abuja, from Owerri and so on and so forth. There is nothing like band. I think that is the error of the past where we create bands around pricing. The market doesn’t work with band, it works with realities.
“But am I suggesting that it’s the Coca Cola kind of situation where the price in Lagos is the same in Maduguri? It’s very unlikely in this commodity, it is an essential commodity.”
He said that removing subsidy will help build a competitive market no longer making NNPC the sole oil importer for Nigeria.
“As soon as the market stabilizes, oil marketing companies are able to come in.
“Competition will definitely come in and the market will regulate the prices itself.”
Glamour Adah
Follow us on:
