The Nigeria National Petroleum Company, NNPC, expressed support for the decision of President Bola Tinubu administration to remove petrol subsidy payments.
Tinubu in his inaugural speech on Monday declared that the costly subsidy payments regime won’t be sustained.
Not long after, queues resurface at filling stations in some parts of the country.
Reacting to the development, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association, IPMAN, blamed the queues on Tinubu’s pronouncement, noting that the queues were a result of panic buying.
Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer, GCEO, of NNPC in a press conference welcomed the decision to stop subsidy on premium motor spirits, PMS.
According to Kyari, the cost of subsidy has been a huge burden on the continued operations of the national oil company.
He said, “We have been funding the subsidy from the cash flow of the NNPC since government is unable to defray the costs of subsidy that is due to the cooperation and we believe that this will free resources for the NNPC to continue to do the great work that this company will do for our country, and it allows us to continue to function as a very commercial entity that will work on this development.
See Also: Petrol Subsidy Removal Would Have Set Nigeria On Fire – NLC
“Secondly, we would like to assure Nigerians that we have sufficient supply of petroleum product, particularly premium motor spirit in our country. And there is no reason to panic.
“We understand people will be scared of potential changes to price of petrol, but that is not enough for people to rush to fuel stations to buy more than what they need.”
Kyari also assured that the company is watching all the distribution networks and support facility.
“We believe that normalcy will be restored very soon,” he said.
Following a N3.35 trillion subsidy budget in 2022, the previous administration, led by former president Muhammadu Buhari, said under-recovery payments would stop in June 2023.
The federal government on April 5, said it secured the sum of $800 million from the World Bank, as part of its post-subsidy palliative plans.
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