Petrol subsidy creeps in five months after it was stopped
Aderemi Ojekunle is a Businessamlive Reporter.
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Nigerians are still yet to come to terms to new revelation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation made an under-recovery or subsidy of N5.348bn in June this year.
The federal government had officially stopped petrol subsidy in this year’s budget after the deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry.
However, data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation have shown that it paid fuel subsidy of N5.348bn in June this year. NNPC’s June 2020 financial and operations report showed that the corporation incurred N5.348bn as subsidy on imported petrol in June.
The Federal Government had officially commenced a petrol pricing regime through the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency(PPPRA) on March 19, 2020, that saw to a halt in petrol subsidy.
The PPPRA through its pricing regime made sure that petrol prices were fixed on a monthly basis in relation to the fluctuation of crude oil prices in the market.
As things stand, for now, the NNPC is the major importer of petroleum products into Nigeria. Further research pointed to the fact that the oil firm incurred N43.31bn, M20.68bn and N37.66bn in January, February and March 2020, respectively as under-recoveries.
The NNPC, however, posted zero under-recovery for the months of April and May 2020, based on receipts and payments for the months.