THE CABLE
Gabriel Ogbechie, chief executive officer (CEO) of Rainoil Limited, claims the federal government (FG) now spends N600 billion on petrol subsidy monthly.
Ogbechie spoke on Tuesday during the Stanbic IBTC Energy and Infrastructure Breakfast Session held in Lagos.
President Bola Tinubu, in his inauguration speech on May 29, 2023, said the subsidy on petrol “is gone”.
However, according to Ogbechie, the federal government resumed petrol subsidy following the devaluation of the naira in the foreign exchange (FX) market.
He said with the current daily consumption at 40 million litres and the FX rate at N1,300, the government’s subsidy per litre on petrol falls between N400 and N500.
“When Mr President came last year, one of the things he said is that subsidy is gone and truly, subsidy was gone because immediately, the price of fuel moved from N200 per litre to N500 per litre,” he said.
“At that point, truly subsidy was gone, because officially, naira was exchanging maybe for anything between N450 to N470. But a few weeks later, they merged the exchange rates and naira officially moved to about N750. At that point, subsidy was beginning to come back.
