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| Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke |
Amid
the ongoing investigation into the management of petrol subsidy, the
Federal Government has removed 98 companies from the list of importers
of the product into the country.
A total of 140 companies were discovered by the House
of Representatives to have imported petrol in 2011, for which more than
N1.7tn had been paid as subsidy claims.
The Federal Government’s action implies that only 42
companies will benefit from the N656bn provided in the 2012 budget for
subsidy payment.
The spokesman of the Petroleum Products Pricing
Regulatory Agency, Dr. Wole Adamolekun, confirmed the removal of the
fuel importers from the 2012 operations in an interview with our
correspondent in Abuja.
He, however, said PPPRA had only 125 fuel importers on its list before the government’s action.
The House of Representatives’ Ad-hoc Committee on the
Subsidy Regime led by Mr. Farouk Lawan, had discovered that 49
companies imported fuel in the first quarter of 2011, but the number
dramatically increased to 140 at the end of the year.
“As far back as December 2011, we had on our own
reduced the number of importers from 125 to 42,” Adamolekun, however,
explained.
He said the new PPPRA management led by the Executive
Secretary, Mr. Reginald Stanley, did so without any prompting from
outside.
The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had
recently hinted that the PPPRA and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources
would trim the number of importers.
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