The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has revealed that Nigeria spent $74.39 billion, or N13.69 trillion, on fuel subsidies between 2005 and 2021.
According to Nairametrics, they commended President Bola Tinubu’s subsidy removal, stating that it is a good thing as they urged him to put the conclusions and suggestions from the NEITI reports into practice.
This information was provided in a statement released on Tuesday and signed by the deputy director and head of stakeholder management, Mrs. Obiageli Onuorah.
Noting that their recommendations for the removal of fuel subsidies have been a continuous request since 2006, the NEITI report stated that the country spent $74.39 billion, or N13.69 trillion, on subsidies between 2005 and 2021, according to NEITI’s reports, the statement continued:
“A breakdown of these numbers revealed that the government provided a subsidy totaling $2.6 billion (N351 billion) in 2005. It spent $1.99 billion and $2.18 billion (N257 billion and N272 billion, respectively) in 2006 and 2007.”
A dramatic reduction was noted in the years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, when it plummeted to $3.34 billion (N654 billion), according to NEITI, which also noted that subsidy payments more than doubled in 2008 and 2010 and had the biggest increase ever in 2011 to $13.52 billion (N2.11 trillion).
Additionally, they reported that the amount spent on subsidies continued to drop in 2016 and 2017, reaching a low of $473 million (N154 billion) in 2017.
“The decrease in payments was just temporary, as they soared to nearly $3.88 billion (N1.19 trillion) in 2018 and $3.58 billion (N1.43 trillion) in 2021.
“According to these numbers, Nigeria spends N805.7 billion annually, N67.1 billion monthly, or N2.2 billion every day,” she added.
This, according to NEITI, also showed that the amount spent on subsidies from 2005 to 2021 was equal to the sum of the budgets for agriculture, defense, health, and education for the previous five years. The organization further notes that the amount is equal to the capital spending for ten years, from 2011 to 2020.
“NEITI’s persistent calls for the elimination of petroleum subsidies were motivated by the fact that over these years, the Federal Government, federation accounts funds, and occasionally external borrowing was used to fund the expenditures, which had an adverse impact on the overall revenue profiles of the government.”
