Nigeria Customs Boss Col. Hameed Ali (retd.), has called out the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited for not being able to account for the volume of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) being consumed in the country daily to warrant the over N6.34tn subsidy payment on the commodity annually.
The Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Ali, in his presentation to the House of Representatives’ Committee on Finance at the continued hearing on the proposed 2023-2025 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper in Abuja on Thursday, stated that the NNPC cannot in any known way prove the 98 million litres/day PMS consumption it was claiming, while alleging that the nation’s oil company was supplying an excess of 38 million litres of PMS daily.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who appeared before the committee earlier on Monday, had disclosed publicly that the government might not be able to provide for treasury-funded capital projects next year, especially due to dwindling revenue and annual payment of N6.34tn subsidy on petrol.
See NCS boss’s statement below ;
Conclusively, the committee’s Deputy Chairman, Saidu Abdullahi, who presided over the hearing, decried that funds under the subsidy scheme, which should have been used to finance capital projects, were being diverted into private pockets.