Petrol subsidy: FG sacks 98 importers

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.

Source