N5,000 monthly for 40 million Nigerians when petrol subsidy ends – Minister

Sun News

From Uche Usim, Abuja

Ahead of the mid-2022 target for petrol subsidy removal, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has revealed that the Federal Government intends to pay a N5,000 monthly stipend to about 30-40 million vulnerable Nigerians to ameliorate the anticipated scorching effect on them and the economy in general.

The minister made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday at a conference tagged Nigeria Development Update (NDU), which had in attendance captains of industries and top government officials, including the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Mele Kyari.

According to her, hefty subsidy payouts remain an injurious development to the Nigerian economy and Nigerians.

She said trillions of naira which ought to be ploughed into subsidy payments can now go into more strategic economic development programmes.

She expressed optimism that the recent developments in the oil sector, such as the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 and the full reactivation of the four public refineries in the country, and the completion and coming on stream of the three private refineries under construction in 2022, would significantly boost contribution from the sector to our economic growth efforts…