FG to adopt new modalities for fuel subsidy, as it releases strategic reserves to check petrol shortage

The Federal Government has intimated of plans to ensure effective channeling and transparent management of subsidy funds.
So also has the government concluded plans to tackle the present shortage of petrol in some parts of the country, especially in the South East and South South where a litre of fuel is selling in some states for as high as N200.

The Ministers of Finance and Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Dizeani Allison-Madueke, made the positions of government on the two issues known on Friday.
Okonjo-Iweala and Allison-Madueke both stated these positions on the wall of their social network, Facebook.
Okonjo-Iweala said the government is committed towards ensuring transparency in the application of subsidy funds.
This is coming on the heels of the condemnation of the application of subsidy funds, especially with the revelations coming from the probe of the disbursement of subsidy funds by the Senate and House of Representatives.
Instead of the about N240 billion government claimed to have spent on subsidy last year, it was unearthed that over N2 trillion was spent.
Okonjo-Iweala thus said that the government had mandated the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority to change the modalities for the administration of the subsidy regime.
Okonjo-Iweala, who wrote with the headline: TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY IN THE FUEL SUBSIDY PAYMENTS, said: “To ensure effective channeling and transparent management of subsidy resources, the Federal Government has mandated PPPRA to change the modalities of the subsidy regime.
“The new regime will focus on transparent selection of genuine marketers with proven track records and capacity, and those whose operations can be easily monitored.”
In her own remarks on her wall on Facebook on the short supply of products to some parts of the country, Allison-Madueke said the government had concluded plans to release the strategic reserves of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in order to meet the demands of Nigerians.
Allison-Madueke wrote: “We are releasing products from NNPC’s strategic reserves to bridge the PMS (fuel) supply shortages causing fuel queues. Supply will reach affected parts very soon.”