Nigeria now spending N1.86bn on subsidy daily

Nigeria could be spending as much as N1.86 billion on subsidy daily going by the current landing cost of petrol which is N180 per litre, TheCable Petrobarometer can report.

Speaking on NTA’s Good Morning Nigeria show, Ibe Kachikwu, the minister of state for petroleum resources, said the landing cost of petrol is now N180 per litre.

Figures from the September 2018 financial results of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) showed that daily petrol consumption has now averaged 53 million litres.

To maintain a retail price of N145 per litre, the government will have to pay N35 on every litre of petrol consumed.

Referring to the subsidy regime which ended in May 2016, the minister said the government could not sustain payments to marketers and still owes them.

“When you look at the gap today, the landing cost is about N180 per litre at a sale price of N145. Imagine if it (pump price) was N90-something; we will literally be a bankrupt country. Thank God it didn’t happen,” he said.

– The Cable