The House of Representatives has called on the Federal Government to discontinue subsidies on not just the Premium Motor Spirit, (PMS), popularly known as petrol, but on all petroleum products.
This call follows the re-emergence of queues at the various fuel stations across the country, following the recent increase in the pump price of petrol products occasioned by the stoppage of fuel subsidy.
These were part of the recommendations by the House Ad-Hoc Committee on the Need to Investigate the Petroleum Products Subsidy Regime in Nigeria, which the lawmakers considered as a Committee of the Whole and adopted in plenary yesterday.
Recall that earlier on Wednesday, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL had informed of an adjustment of the pump price of petrol to reflect the market realities.
Following that step, several retail outlets also adjusted their tank prices to reflect new rates ranging from between N600 and N800 in Lagos, Abuja, Ogun, and other parts of the country.
However, the House urged the government to roll out palliatives and other measures to cushion the effects of the removal of the fuel subsidy on Nigerians.
Chairman of the committee, Ibrahim Aliyu, had laid the report on Wednesday, 11 months after the task was assigned to the panel. The committee recommended that “the Federal Government should outrightly remove subsidies on all petroleum products”.
The panel stressed that the government should “introduce inter-modal, regional and national transport systems to ease mass movement of people across the country”.
The House, had on June 29, 2022, resolved to investigate payments for subsidy on petroleum products, especially Premium Motor Spirit, (PMS), popularly known as petrol, under the last administration led by the Buhari administration.
Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, had set up the panel, whose probe covered 2017 to 2021, with the mandate to report back to the House within eight weeks for further legislative action.
The probe was based on a motion titled: ‘Need to Investigate the Petroleum Products Subsidy Regime in Nigeria from 2017 to 2021,’ which a member of the House, Sergius Ogun, moved at the plenary on Wednesday and the lawmakers unanimously adopted.
