N2.19trn Spent On Fuel Subsidy Last Year – FG

MINISTER  of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told the Senate, yesterday, that the Federal Government spent a total of N2.19 trillion on fuel subsidy last year.

Okonjo-Iweala disclosed this when she appeared before the Senator Magnus Abe-led Senate Joint  Committee on Petroleum (downstream and upstream), Finance and Appropriation, that is currently probing the fuel subsidy disbursement.

Meanwhile, chairman of the Senate Committee,  Senator Magnus Abe,  has  declared the JP Morgan off-shore account operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as illegal and unconstitutional.

Abe drew the attention of the officers  to Sections 80 and 160 of the 1999 constitution (as amended), which made it mandatory  that all revenues occruing to the Federal Government shall be remitted to the federation account maintained at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

Speaking further, the Finance Minister who noted that  a total  of N1.7 trillion was paid as arrears from the N2.19 trillion, stressed that the balance of N451 billion was expended on actual fuel subsidy during the year.

When the committee requested to know what  the Federal Government would spend on fuel subsidy this year, the minister who told the committee that she could not make such projections now, explained, however, that it was only the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, that deals with allocations to marketers that can give out such figure, adding that there was the need for government to work out a formula through which the Ministry of Finance will know the actual subsidy to be paid at any given time.

Culled from www.vanguardngr.com