Finance minister, Dr. Mansur Muhtar, has added his voice to ongoing debates over the actual amount that government has expended on subsidy of petroleum products, saying that a whopping N640 billion was spent to subsidise the pump price of the essential product in 2008 alone.
Speaking to participants at the recently concluded retreat for Secretaries to the State Governments (SSGs in Minna, Niger State, the minister said that the amount was N60 billion higher than what government spent on capital projects in the same year.
“If we are subsidising petrol to be sold at N65 per litre but it’s rarely available at that price, because it is at the old price of that dealers sell it, N70 per litre to N90 per litre, who is pocketing the difference?” he asked.
Muhtar expressed regrets over the huge subsidy spending and disclosed that government was equally concerned about the huge resources that are being pumped into petroleum products subsidy, and remarked that it is more painful that the resources do not get to the consumers.
Discussion about this post