Contrary to prevailing speculations and official confusion that Nigeria had at the beginning of this administration said goodbye to Petroleum Subsidy regime, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru on Sunday, rested the argument, saying “The
Corporation currently spends N774m daily as subsidy on the 50 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit consumed across the country every day”.
However, while tagging the figure as ‘under-recovery,’ he made it clear that the huge fund was due to the proliferation of filling stations in communities with international land and coastal borders across the country.
Explaining more when he led a management team of the corporation on a visit to the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (Retd), Baru averred that “The multiplication of filling stations had energised unprecedented cross-border smuggling of petrol to neighbouring countries, making it difficult to sanitise the fuel supply and distribution matrix in Nigeria”.
In a statement issued by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Ndu Ughamadu, the Corporation noted that detailed study conducted by NNPC indicated strong correlation between the presence of the frontier stations and the activities of fuel smuggling syndicates.
Baru decried the activities of the smugglers, saying the economic sabotage contributed to the observed abnormal surge in the evacuation of petrol from less than 35 million litres per day to more than 60 milion litres per day, which was in sharp contrast with established national consumption pattern.
However, industry followers say the revelation may raise dusts at the National Assembly as such funds, whether described as ‘under-recovery,’ or over recovery are not part of appropriations made by the budget Act.
