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Reps implore FG to remove subsidies on all petroleum products
The Federal Government has been urged by the House of Reps to stop providing subsidies for all petroleum-based goods, not just Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol.
This call comes in response to the recent increase in the pump price of gasoline products caused by the cessation of the PMS subsidy as well as the resurgence of lines at various gas stations across the nation.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited had announced an adjustment to the pump price of fuel earlier on Wednesday to reflect market realities.
After that, several retail stores in Lagos, Abuja, Ogun, and other areas of the nation changed their tank prices to reflect the new rates, which ranged from N600 to N800.
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However, the House of Reps urged the government to roll out palliatives and other measures to cushion the effects of the removal of the PMS subsidy on Nigerians.
These were part of the recommendations by the House Ad Hoc Committee on the Need to Investigate the Petroleum Products Subsidy Regime in Nigeria, which the lawmakers considered as a Committee of the Whole and adopted in plenary on Thursday.
Chairman of the committee, Ibrahim Aliyu, had laid the report on Wednesday, 11 months after the task was assigned to the panel.
The committee recommended that “the Federal Government should outrightly remove subsidies on all petroleum products.”
It also recommended that “the Federal Government should immediately design measures and palliatives to cushion the effects of the subsidy removal for Nigerians, effective from this year 2023, through the provision and procurement of Compressed Natural Gas buses as an alternative transport system with cheaper fuel consumption,” it remarked.
The panel stressed that the government should “introduce intermodal, regional and national transport systems to ease mass movement of people across the country.”
In addition, the committee recommended that the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission should “issue stricter and most appropriate regulations as provided in the Petroleum Industry Act to ensure that Nigerians are not short-changed through profiteering.”
