About 40 million deserving Nigerians from next year will receive N5,000 monthly transport fare to cushion the effect of the impending fuel subsidy removal, the Federal Government has said.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, at the launch of the World Bank Nigeria Development Update (NDU) on Tuesday.
Recall that the government had earlier announced that it would remove petrol subsidy in July 2022.
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To this, the number of targeted Nigerians for this monthly stipend would depend on the resources available after the removal of the fuel subsidy, according to the finance minister.
“The subsidies regime in the [oil] sector remains unsustainable and economically disingenuous,” she said.
“Ahead of the target date of mid-2022 for the complete elimination of fuel subsidies, we are working with our partners on measures to cushion potential negative impact of the removal of the subsidies on the most vulnerable at the bottom 40% of the population.
“One of such measures would be to institute a monthly transport subsidy in the form of cash transfer of N5,000 to between 30 – 40 million deserving Nigerians.
“We are very optimistic that the recent developments in the oil sector, such as the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, hopefully, the full reactivation of the 4 public refineries in the country, and the completion and coming on stream of the 3 private refineries under construction in 2022, would significantly boost contribution from the sector to our economic growth efforts.”
The World Bank in the development update had said the poorest 40 per cent in Nigeria consume less than three per cent of the total PMS in the country, highlighting that the rich were benefiting more from the subsidies.
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