Being Made To Spend N18b On Fuel Subsidy Daily Putting Financial Strain On FG-Finance Minister
Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab
Ahmed, has said N18.397 billion is spent on fuel subsidy daily
which has put a financial strain on the Federal Government.
She added that Nigeria must therefore at a point take the painful
decision of doing away with the fuel subsidy.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned the minister
said this on Thursday while responding to questions thrown at her
by members of the House of Representatives Ad-hoc committee investigating
the petroleum products subsidy regime in the country.
‘For 2023, the projection is that the average daily truck out will be N64.96
million litres per day; that is about 65 million per day, using an average rate
at the open market rate of N448.20k and then a regulator pump price of N165 per
litre. This gives us an average under-recovery i.e. the difference between N165
and N448 of N283.2k.
So, just multiply the amount of litre per day, the open market exchange rate
of naira to the dollar and then, the gap between the pump price and open market
price, the total amount of subsidy per day is N18.397bn.
So, if you are projecting for the full year, from January to December, it
will be N6.715tn. If you are projecting for half a year, it will be 50 per cent
of that, 3.375tn’ she said.
The minister said the ministry had consulted with the leadership of
the National Assembly and had submitted the draft Medium-Term Expenditure
Framework (M-TEF) for two years – 2023 to 2025, took inputs and made such
available to the National Economic Council (NEC) and the Federal Executive
Council (FEC).
Ahmed added that the FEC had approved the M-TEF and the president had
forwarded the M-TEF to the National Assembly.
Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS),
Muhammad Nami, also explained that the role of the agency he heads was
purely that of collection of revenue for the government and not about keeping
records of how such monies are spent.
Chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Ibrahim Almustapha Aliyu, and
members questioned the rationale behind the subsidy regime as well as payments
and funds withdrawal from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) and Excess Crude
Account to fund subsidy- Team@orientactualmags.com
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