Save Nigerians From N3trn Subsidy Bill, CSOs Urge FG

The Federal Government has been urged to end the regime of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) importation by speedily completing the rehabilitation of the nation’s refineries to save Nigeria from incurring the N3.3trillion petrol subsidy bill.
A group of civil society organisations under the aegis of the Civil Society for Good Governance (CSGGG), said at the weekend that the government must also urgently address the issue of petrol smuggling to neighbouring countries.
CSGGG President, Comrade Dominic Ogakwu, told journalists in Abuja that Nigeria’s cheaper cost of petrol was at the heart of petrol smuggling to neighbouring countries.
Ogakwu expressed concern that the country was spending huge part of its revenue on petrol subsidy, saying subsidy bill was growing faster than the nation’s economy.
According to him, “A key area of concern is Nigeria’s fuel subsidy bill which is growing faster and bigger than what our country’s economy can carry. If you will all recall, it was stated recently that the country needs to spend a princely N3trillion on subsidy in 2022.
“In the light of this humungous sum, we join well-meaning Nigerians in calling on the Federal Government to speed up the rehabilitation of the refineries to improve availability of products locally and reduce importation.
“It is also important that the Federal Government also ensures that the right policies are in place and improve the country’s domestic refining capacity to meet local demand before subsidy removal is implemented”.
The CSOs also pointed out that it was important that petrol smuggling was checked.
“One urgent measure that needs to be addressed is our country’s borders which have remained largely porous. Without a doubt, some unpatriotic elements are cashing on this gap to divert and smuggle our subsidy-coated fuel to neighbouring countries.
“This ugly trade is putting unnecessary burden on government’s scare resource. It is still unbelievable that we are consuming over 65million litres of petrol every day. Only the existence of subsidy can explain this. Nigeria has one of the cheapest fuels per litre in the entire West African sub-region. Our cheaper fuel is very attractive to smugglers and something drastic needs to be done to address this ugly trend and hopefully crash the PMS consumed daily, hence a cost reduction of subsidy claims.
“We want to use this forum, to call on the Nigerian Customs Service and other relevant security agencies to pay special attention to our land borders in order to mitigate the smuggling of Nigeria’s petroleum products to neighbouring countries”, the group added.
While commending the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited for keeping the country supplied with petrol despite the challenges, the group said deregulation of the downstream sector was crucial to achieving NNPC Limited’s commercial mandate as envisaged in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
The company had last week reported that it incurred petrol subsidy cost of N1.6trillion in 2021 and also demanded for a budget of N3.3trillion from the government to cover subsidy cost in 2022.