Official daily consumption rate of petrol unrealistic – FG

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Silva on Thursday said the official daily consumption rate of petrol in Nigeria does not reflect the actual consumption rate.

The minister made this known while fielding questions from legislators at a joint session of National Assembly Committees overseeing the oil sector.

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

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

Silva also assured Nigerians that the Federal Government has no immediate plan to remove fuel subsidy.

“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 heap 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.

The minister said that Nigeria was subsidising for almost half of Africa which was very difficult to manage.

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

Silva explained that fixing the refineries would also help to reduce the cost of subsidy and that government was doing lots to get the refineries working again.