19 January 2012
Nigerians need 35 million litres, government pays subsidy on 59 million litres daily.
The Nigerian government wasted a whopping N667 billion [$4.4 bn] annually to subsidize millions of litres of petrol Nigerians never needed, with much of that amount enriching corrupt NNPC officials and marketers, it emerged Wednesday.
For years, the federal government was subsidizing as much as 24 million liters of petrol that Nigerians did not use daily, with much of that smuggled into other countries through a mesh of high-wired sleaze that surround the importation and subsidy of refined petrol, a top official said Wednesday.
The Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory Agency, Reginald Stanley, said on Wednesday that before the removal of subsidy on January 1, the country was importing up to 59 million litres of petrol daily when the country actually needs 35 million litres, with government subsidy covering all of the imports.
With the government paying N76 in subsidy, to lower the cost of fuel imported into the country, that translated to N1.9billion daily, and N667 billion annually.
Mr. Stanley spoke at the ongoing House of Representative investigations of the management of fuel subsidies, adding a new page to a harvest of shocking revelations from the hearing since Monday.
The disclosures - many of them not new having been aired at a similar sitting at the senate last year - have helped crystallize the anger and frustration of a nation that has just returned from the streets after a week of strikes and protest against the removal of fuel subsidy and the attendant raise in prices.
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