The Federal Government has paid a whopping N634 billion as subsidy for kerosene importation over a three year period, 2010-2012. The sum is about a third of the country’s capital budget.
The removal of fuel subsidy had sparked off nationwide protests in January 2012, a development that led to the unveiling of deep-rooted corruption in the management of the Petroleum Subsidy Fund, PSF.
WAITING: Queue for kerosene at a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mega Filling Station in Yelwa, Bauchi State, yesterday. NAN PHOTO.
In the case of kerosene, except for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, retail outlets, no other filling station anywhere in the country sells kerosene at N50/Litre, the reason the product is being subsidised.
The development has raised dust among economic analysts, who wonder why the product remains subsidized, since it is not being sold at regulated price.
The Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), Dakuku Peterside, disclosed this yesterday, at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI Petroleum Downstream Group Seminar on Kerosene.
Peterside, who gave a breakdown of what made up the figures, revealed that in 2010, Nigeria spent over N110.068 billion to subsidise kerosene.
He said further: “There were also some investigations that showed that the downstream sector is entrenched in deep corruption in Nigeria in the 2011. That year, we spent about N324.1billion on kerosene subsidy. In 2012, although we are yet to reconcile this, we spent N200billion subsidising kerosene.
“And so in three years, we’ve spent N634 billion subsidising kerosene which one third of what we spend in a year of capital budget. But we do not spend up to N4.5billion on capital budget in a year.
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