Fed Govt to unveil new policy on fuel subsidy – Kachikwu

By The Citizen

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, on Tuesday said that the Federal Government would in the next few days unveil new policy to address the problem of fuel subsidy in the country.

Kachikwu who stated this during a town hall meeting in Kaduna, said that the introduction of price modulation had helped to stabilise the problem.

The minister, however, said that it was necessary for the country's oil sector to reflect global pricing of the product.

Kachikwu said, 'We are coming up with a policy in the next few days that will allow us develop the price modulation that allow us swing our price along with international pricing.

'We are now transiting into fuel modulating pricing because we do not have sufficient foreign exchange to continue fuel importation we have been doing.

'Therefore, NNPC has to produce about 100 per cent of the product, that is the cause of the scarcity.'

He said that the NNPC did not also have the logistics and coverage for effective distribution of the product.

The minister said that there was no budgetary allocation for fuel subsidy in the 2016 budget.

He said, 'The Federal Government has struggled to offset about N600 billion subsidy balance when the administration came into power.' - Punch.