Though the budget made a provision for subsidy payments till the end of June, the figures are merely numbers as they are not cash-backed, necessitating the immediate implementation of the end of subsidy, says Mele Kyari, Group CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd.
“There are numbers in the appropriation but we don’t have the cash in our hands,” said Kyari in an interview on Arise Television on Thursday.
President Bola Tinubu on Monday during his inauguration announced that “subsidy is gone” sending the market into a tailspin as those who had the products quickly shut their pumps and long queues emerged across the nation.
Read also: Subsidy: NNPC formally announces petrol pump price adjustment
Many Nigerians including labour leaders have made the argument that the announcement was hasty and did not factor in that subsidies had been paid on the products on which the prices have been paid.
But the NNPCL boss refuted this claim saying that the incorporation has been unable to meet its fiscal responsibilities including paying taxes and dividends because the Nigerian government has been unable to pay for subsidies.
Kyari said the corporation was being over N2 trillion and the debt keeps rising because even though there was a budgetary provision, the Federal government was not paying.
