Fuel subsidy is gone— Tinubu declares

…Marketers shut gates against motorists, may sell petrol at N450 per litre

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced that the regime of fuel subsidy is gone. He made the pronouncement during his inauguration speech at the Eagle Square yesterday.

He said the money expended on subsidy would rather be used on other areas that would have a bearing on the lives of Nigerians.

With the pronouncement by Tinubu, there are likely to be long queues in filling stations because the regime of subsidy ends this month end. This will also cause the price of fuel to escalate to about N400 per litre.

Report has it that some marketers on Lagos-Abeokuta expressway as well as in Ota, Ogun state have already begun to shut gates against motorists, expecting to sell petrol at about N450 per litre.

However, Tinubu is yet to give details of his model for removal of subsidy. In March this year, the Group Chief Executive of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, said the landing cost of petrol has risen to N315/litre.

He said, “Today, by law and the provisions of the Appropriation Act, there is a subsidy on the supply of petroleum products, particularly PMS imports into our country. In current data terms, three days ago, the landing cost was around N315/litre.

“Our customers are here; we are transferring to each of them at N113/litre. That means there is a difference of close to N202 for every litre of PMS we import into this country. In computation, N202 multiplied by 66.5 million litres, multiplied by 30 will give you over N400bn of subsidy every month,” Kyari said.

Tinubu also told the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to unify the exchange rate.The wide gap between the parallel and official exchange market rates has been largely blamed for the low influx of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) into the country.

Tinubu also said his target is to have a 6 per cent growth of the Gross Domestic Product.