Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola, has insisted that there is fraud going on in the management of fuel subsidy, saying the country has not been able to ascertain the amount of fuel being consumed by the country.
He said there is a cartel benefitting from the subsidy which the government has not been able to unveil, adding that there is “a lot of cross-border transfer of this product.”
Daily Trust reports that the federal government in the reviewed 2022 budget had voted N4 Trillion for fuel subsidy, an increase of about N3.6tr from the N434bn earlier voted for subsidy in the budget presented to the National Assembly last year.
It would be recalled that the government later resorted to subsidy after Nigerians resisted the removal of fuel subsidy which would have astronomically increased the price of fuel.
In a chat with select journalists in Lagos, Adeola decried the amount of oil theft going on in Nigeria, saying it is affecting the revenue of the government.
He said, “On the issue of subsidy, I strongly believe that there is fraud still going on. We cannot ascertain what the real consumption is as far as these products are concerned in Nigeria. We still believe that there is a lot of cross-border transfer of this product. Once it comes to Nigeria, it goes through the border more than what we even consume in Nigeria.
“If that is still an issue and we cannot come out and say this is what we consume, then there is fraud. This thing is a cartel and they do it in such a way that we don’t even suspect. When you look at it, you would know that there is a cartel. We are still battling with unfolding those who are behind this. Successive governments, NNPC administrations, have not been able to unravel this.
“The oil theft that is going on in the Niger Delta is not helping us at all. Now it is like guerilla oil theft where you have NNPC, Navy, Customs; you have the NNPC officials, you have the boys of the Niger Delta, all involved in this oil theft and it is seriously affecting the revenue of the country.
“The issue of subsidy has been on the front burner. It has been a major issue because as we speak, in the 2022 budget that was initially passed, we provided N434bn as subsidy. But in the reviewed budget, we have increased oil subsidy to about N4tr. We had no choice because the cost of bringing in this product is high and it needs to be paid for or else a litre of petrol will go for as much as N300 to N400.”
