The National Economic Council (NEC), comprising the 36 State Governors in the country, on Thursday mulled the idea of taking over the responsibility of subsidising petroleum products in their states based on consumption.
The position of the governors expressed at the NEC meeting chaired by the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, in Abuja followed the huge amount of money being claimed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yearly on fuel subsidy payment.
The Chairman of Governors’ Forum, Governor Abdulazeez Yari of Zamfara State, who spoke on the option while responding to media enquiries on the outcome of the meeting, questions after said that the governors would in June take decision on whether to take responsibility for the subsidy in their states or not.
The Governor described as outrageous the N800 billion being expended by the NNPC as subsidy, saying that NEC must decide whether to allow NNPC to continue with the payment or not.
He explained: “Our problem is the volume, the quantity of consumption which is not acceptable. Working with the governors so many decisions were taken but by next month, we are going to adopt that position either for the governors to take responsibility for the subsidy in their states based on the consumption or we look at other ways.
“For instance, if you say we paid N800 billion subsidy, you will ask who are we paying the subsidy to? And if you look at infrastructure development and capital programme of the Federal Government, it is about N1.1 trillion, almost 70 per cent of what you are spending on developing the economy.
“If there is no infrastructure development then you cannot talk about development of the economy. N800 billion is a huge amount that we must look at it, who is benefiting from it.
“So we are coming up with a strategy, we are going to meet in the month of May and June. By next meeting, we will definitely come up with a position of the government at both level of volume of what is being brought into the country and what the state and Federal Government collaborate to check”, Yari added.
The governor also hinted that the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar, briefed the NEC on the establishment of the Nigerian Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council which was approved by Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2017.
He confirmed that the Advisory Council requested NEC to approve the proposals in order to drive the nation’s industrialisation agenda.
