The Federal Government has said it will implement the removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol before May 209, 2023, which is the end of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed disclosed this during a courtesy visit to the Voice of Nigeria (VON) headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

She said, “The fuel subsidy is one of those political economic decisions that you don’t want to have but you’re stuck with it anyway. But we’ve come to the point when almost everybody has agreed that this is really not serving the people that it is supposed to service and the cost of it has become so high that it’s adding to our deficit.

“And right now, we have approval within the appropriate shouldn’t act to exit subsidy by June 2023. Or at least I can say the Appropriation Act made a provision that only allows subsidies up to June 2023.

“So, we have to find ways in which we have to remove the subsidy and allow the market to flourish.

“When you remove the subsidy, then you have marketers that would be able to invest and bring this fuel product and sell it at market prices right now. And NNPC is the sole importer, it is imported and it is limited to an official price. So the subsidy per letter now ranges, anything from 350, sometimes up to 400 per liter, the subsidy that the government is carrying just imagine what you can do with 250 billion naira per month because that’s the average cost per month to the nation that is even the cost to NNPC, there’s an implicit subsidy of FX.

“Now, we have not even calculated or included in this 250, there’s so much you can do. You can build more hospitals, more schools provide more social services, and improve infrastructure that will enhance the quality of life of the people instead of just using it on a consumption item, you put gas in your car and a couple of days is gone and then you have to put again.

“So we do hope that this time around, the whole country will work with the government to get rid of this subsidy to save us from continuously expending limited resources on a consumption item.” (New Telegraph)

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