The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) yesterday stated that it paid about N832.06 billion in 2013 as subsidy claims to petroleum products marketers under the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF).
It said the 2013 total subsidy payment figure was slightly lower than its 2012 figure of N862.06 billion which it paid and that it had been able to as part of cost cutting measures, eliminate previous manipulation of bill of lading to continuously make such savings to the government.
The immediate past Executive Secretary of PPPRA, Mr. Reginald Stanley, who handed over the responsibility of managing the agency to its new Executive Secretary, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, also explained in his formal hand-over remarks in Abuja that within the 2013 subsidy expenditure framework, the agency was able to save for the government N326.57 billion, at the same time keeping the number of marketers pruned to import fuel into the country to about 48.
“Today, the downstream has been completely sanitised. PPPRA processes and procedures are all aligned to global best practice. This has engendered confidence, transparency and accountability in line with President Goodluck Jonathan’s transformation agenda.
PPPRA under my watch was able to reduce the daily consumption from 60.25 million litres per day in 2011 to 39.79 million litres per day in 2012,”
“Similarly, in 2013, the agency recorded 42.11 million litres per day which was 18.14 million litres per day less than what was recorded in 2011.
What is so spectacular of the 2013 consumption is that it showed a modest increase of 5.5 per cent on 2012 figure, in an economy growing at 6.9 per cent per annum. Statistically, gasoline consumption tracks the GDP growth very closely.”
On subsidy payments, he said:
“Equally arising from this reduction in volume of petrol is the huge savings to the subsidy payment of N409 billion in 2012 and N326.57 billion in 2013. PPPRA was able to reduce subsidy on PMS in 2012 to N862.06 billion while the figure in 2013 was about N832.06 billion.”
“In the last 24 months, over N70 billion has been invested in the downstream. So many depots and jetties have been built through private initiates, thereby generating thousands of jobs in our economy.”
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/pppra-paid-n832bn-as-subsidy-to-oil-marketers-in-2013/172454/
