Petroleum Minister, Sylva Speaks On Removal Of Fuel Subsidy

Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Silva

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Silva on Thursday assured Nigerians that the Federal Government has no immediate plan to remove fuel subsidy.

Sylva disclosed this while fielding questions from legislators at a joint session of the National Assembly Committees overseeing the oil sector, NAN reports.

He said, “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 hip 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 said.

Silver said that the official daily consumption rate of petrol in Nigeria does not reflect the actual consumption rate.

He maintained that the government does not believe that Nigerians consume over 60 million litres of fuel daily.

According to him, there is a lot of smuggling and lots of our neighbours are taking advantage of the cheaper price in Nigeria.

He added that Nigeria was subsidising for almost half of Africa which was very difficult to manage.

The minister also said that the government was working to close up such leakages and when achieved, the cost of subsidy would be bearable.