The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it spends N774 million every day to subsidize petrol to keep the fix retail pump price of N145 per litre.
Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru revealed this when he led a top management team of the corporation on a visit to the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (Retd).
The daily evacuation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol, varied in recent past months ranging from 35million litres per day to 60million litres per day and even to as high as 80million litres per day as at December last year.
Baru, noted that based on the heightened petrol consumption rate of 50 million litre per day, the corporation was incurring an under-recovery of N774 million every day.
He said, “NNPC is concerned that continued cross-border smuggling of petrol will deny Nigerians the benefit of the Federal Government’s benevolence of keeping a fix retail price of N145 per litre despite the increase in PMS open market price above N171 per litre,’’ he said.
Nigeria News Network recalls that the House of Reps in January 2018 summoned the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, and the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Maikanti Baru, over the reintroduction of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (petrol).
The House of Reps described the act as an “illegality”, having been done without recourse to the National Assembly.
A motion moved by a member from Kogi State, Mr. Karimi Sunday, on the floor of the House, indicated that the NNPC spent “over N300billion” on subsidy from January 2017 to December of the same year without appriopration.
Karimi informed the House that in the first three months of the year, the oil corporation had already recorded an “under recovery” of N46.86bn.
“This trend continued at an increasing rate all through 2017.
“As of December, over N300bn had been expended on petrol subsidy for 2017 alone. This trend continues till date,” the lawmaker added.
He recalled that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and Kachikwu admitted in December 2017 that the Federal Government, through the NNPC, was paying N26 on each litre of petrol to suck up the difference between the landing cost of N171 and the official pump price of N145.
“This happened despite the fact that the Executive said that it had removed subsidy.
“Besides, there was no parliamentary approval for subsidy payment in the 2017 Appropriation Act”, Karimi told the House.
In the current 2018 budget lying before the National Assembly, there is also no allocation for fuel subsidy.