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The Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, Limited has presented to the Federal Executive Council FEC a bill of N3 trillion as what is required in 2022 for payment of petroleum subsidy.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the cabinet meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chambers, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The minister said that the FEC considered the request to make additional funding provision to enable the government to meet incremental fuel subsidy payment in the 2022 budget.
She recalled that only N443 billion is presently available in the 2022 budget meant to accommodate subsidy from January to June.
The Minister said with the realities on ground including the present hardship faced by Nigerians and the lack of structures to support subsidy removal, the NNPC made a request for N3 trillion from the Ministry of Finance for 2022.
According to her, “What this means is that we have to make incremental provision of N2.557 trillion to be able to meet subsidy requirement which is averaging about N270 billion per month.”
She said the request was considered by council which directed the ministry to approach the National Assembly for an amendment to the fiscal framework as well as the budget.
The minister also revealed that the council has approved an amendment to be transmitted to the National Assembly to repeal clauses 10 and 11 concerning the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) operations in the 2022 budget and as well restore what the lawmakers had deleted amounting to N103 billion.
Mrs Ahmed said that council approved that the National Assembly should restore the N103 billion slashed from the budget for the provision of critical infrastructure.