The Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited says
it supports the decision of the new administration to scrap petrol subsidy
payments.
In his inaugural speech on Monday, President Bola Tinubu
announced that the costly subsidy payments has ended.
Soon after the pronouncement, queues resurfaced at filling
stations in some parts of the country.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association (IPMAN) had
linked the development to Tinubu’s announcement, adding that the queues were
caused by panic buying.
Speaking at a press conference later on, Mele Kyari, group
chief executive officer (GCEO) of NNPC, welcomed the decision to end subsidy on
premium motor spirits (PMS).
Kyari said the cost of subsidy has been a huge burden on the
continued operations of the national oil company.
“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,” he said.
“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 Muhammadu Buhari, former president, said
under-recovery payments would stop in June 2023.
On April 5, the federal government said it secured the sum
of $800 million from the World Bank, as part of its post-subsidy palliative
plans.
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