…As World Bank predicts it may gulp N5tr in 2022
Anambra State governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, has faulted the continued retention of fuel subsidy in Nigeria.
Soludo’s concern came at a time the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited said payments for petrol subsidy cost the Federation Account N1.217 trillion in the first five months of 2022.
However, Soludo, noted that fuel subsidy should be charged from the Federal government and not sub-national states.
He also argued that the subsidy ought to have been removed ‘like yesterday,’ adding that its retention could cause the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to spill money.
Soludo, who made his intentions known at the launch of the Nigeria Development Update (NDU) by the World Bank group on Tuesday, emphasised that the solutions to Nigeria’s problems are obvious and not far-fetched.
He asked specifically: “ (If) Federal government decides that it wants to subsidise Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), why do you have to charge it from the sub-national states? You should charge it from the revenue of the Federal government.
“We need to have this conversation, the politics, and structure of the government and so on. We cannot do the same thing over and over again and expect the same result; it’s not going to happen. We’ve had this analysis for a decade, the same analysis and conclusions of what to do.
“Remove this subsidy like yesterday; this ought to have been removed like yesterday. If we continue with the subsidy, Central Bank (of Nigeria) will continue to spill money. The solutions are pretty obvious. What we need to do is to be committed to it.”
– Media Report