- Increasing Rate Of Dollar Puts Strains On Importers
- Govt bears payment for difference in N145 pump rate and actual landing cost of N165
The Federal Government may have returned to paying fuel subsidy to importers of petroleum products.
An investigation conducted by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) and released on Saturday concluded that payment of petrol subsidy was back in the system.
The government of President Muhammadu Buhari had embarked on a full deregulation of the petroleum sector in 2016 aimed at discarding the old practice of subsidising the end-cost of fuel supplies to the consumers, a system which had been seen to be fraught with fraudulent practices.
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Introducing what the government called price modulated regime which hiked the price of petrol from N97 per litre to its current rate of N145, and other products like diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel correspondingly adjusted upwards, it was said the era of the controversial subsidy was over.
NAN investigations, however, revealed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been paying for months the difference between the landing costs of petrol and the pump price.
In series of interviews with knowledgeable players in the sector, NAN claims it could report authoritatively that the landing costs per litre of petrol is higher than the price Nigerians pay at the pump.
According to a source, who is a staff of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, government has backed down on its policy of subsidy removal and been quietly bearing the price differential.
