FG has no plan to remove fuel subsidy for now, says Silva

Minister of State for Petroleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, on Thursday, assured that the Federal Government has no plan to remove fuel subsidy for now.

The minister made this known while fielding questions from the joint Senate and House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) held at the National Assembly in Abuja.

“This government is not about to remove subsidy because it is difficult; we believe as a government that our people are going through a lot.

“We cannot as a responsible government heap another issue of petroleum price hike or removal of subsidy on Nigerians.

“It is not on the cards at all, we are just looking at how we can manage it,” he declared.

Sylva said that the official daily consumption of petrol in the country does not reflect the actual consumption rate, revealing that government does not believe Nigerians consume over 60 million litres of fuel daily.

According to the minister, there is lot of smuggling and many of Nigeria’s neighbours are taking advantage of the cheaper fuel price in the country, as such the country is subsidising the fuel consumption of almost half of Africa.

The minister said that government is working to close up such leakages to make the cost of subsidy bearable, asserting further that fixing the refineries would also help to reduce subsidy cost because government is doing a lot to get the refineries working again.

On the declaration of Anambra as an oil producing state by President Goodluck Jonathan, the minister said that there were lots of things left undone that would have benefited the state.

However, he said that the ministry is in the process of amending the Deep Shore Act to address such lacuna and missed opportunities, just as he confirmed that crude oil in commercial quantity has been discovered in Bauchi State.