NNPC losing N774m fuel subsidy revenues daily to smuggling – Amoré
Leading a top Management team of the corporation on a visit to the Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, revealed that detailed study conducted by NNPC indicated strong correlation between the presence of the frontier stations and the activities of fuel smuggling syndicates.
According to Baru, 16 states, having among them 61 Local Government Areas with border communities, account for 2,201 registered fuel stations.
He said that the activities of the smugglers had led to recent observed abnormal surge in the evacuation of petrol from less than 35 million litres per day to more than 60 million litres per day.
Baru explained that because of the obvious differential in petrol price between Nigeria and other neighbouring countries, it had become lucrative for the smugglers to use the frontier stations as a veritable conduit for the smuggling of products across the border, saying this had resulted in a thriving market for Nigerian petrol in neighbouring countries of Niger Republic, Benin Republic, Cameroun, Chad and Togo and even Ghana which has no direct borders with Nigeria.
“’NNPC is concerned that continued cross-border smuggling of petrol will deny Nigerians the benefit of the Federal Government’s benevolence of keeping a fixed retail price of N145 per litre despite the increase in PMS open market price above N171 per litre,’’ he said.
The Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Col.Hammed Ali, has promised to work with the force to checkmate the smuggling of petroleum products across the nation’s borders.
Coupled with the hoarding by fuel marketers, the persistent on and off fuel queues across the country has been a pain point for Nigerians for a long time.
If NNPC is paying this much to maintain the subsidies, why hasn’t the subsidy been removed? The accruing monies from the subsidy can definitely be channeled into other sectors of the economy that need it.
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Quiet and loud; shy and extroverted; romantic feminist? Kay is a body of beautiful parallels. She lives in and through books when she’s not writing about hot gender topics and beautiful libraries. Social commentaries and critiquing governance are her favourite pastimes.
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