Petroleum subsidy will be over in June, the National Economic Council (NEC) hinted yesterday.
Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule told reporters in Abuja after an NEC meeting that the provision for subsidy in the 2022 budget terminates in June.
He spoke along with Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki.
Also, Organised Labour maintained that its proposed protest against subsidy removal would go on as scheduled on January 27.
Sule clarified that governors who are members of the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo-led NEC have no role in determining the prices of petroleum products.
He said: “If the Minister of Finance (Zainab Ahmed) provides a subsidy for six months, you probably can understand part of the reasons for the provision.
“When the NNPC Limited fully takes off, it is at that moment that decisions on subsidy removal will be made.
“I want to correct that it is not governors who are making recommendations. It is an NEC committee that comprises all the others.
“Already, the Petroleum Industry Act has fully taken charge, and it will not require any recommendation from anybody.”
Obaseki said the Federal Government was spending about N2 trillion on petroleum subsidies annually.
The governor said the amount could have been used for other purposes, adding that Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which sells for N162-165 per litre in Nigeria, is 100 per cent higher in other countries.
According to him, the NEC wondered whether that should be allowed to continue in a situation where, he pointed out, only two-thirds of the states of the federation consume the subsidy.
“There was an ad-hoc committee, which was set up by NEC headed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State that included members of the Executive arm of government.
“The committee worked on recommendations as to what we should do about the cost of PMS locally because as you realise, as has been told us, the cost of PMS in Nigeria today is about N162 per litre, whereas every other country surrounding Nigeria is selling the same product at more than 100 per cent of the cost in Nigeria.
“And the country as at last year spent more than N2 trillion subsidising petroleum products. That is money that could have gone into building roads, money that could have gone into healthcare and education.
“So, for NEC, the arguments have been put out, should we continue this regime of spending money we do not have to subsidize the living standards of only mostly those who have vehicles?
“And when NEC looked at some of the analysis last year, we then realised that less than 1/3 of the states of this country consume two-thirds of the subsidy.