Chinedu Okonkwo, national president of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), says the federal government has saved N400 billion in four weeks after removing fuel subsidies.
IPMAN operates within the downstream oil and gas sector.
Okonkwo said this in an interview with DAILYPOST on Friday.
Speaking on the state of the sector aftermath of the removal of the subsidy and the unification of the country’s foreign exchange (FX) market by the Central Bank of Nigeria, he said that the impact of the deregulation is long-term.
Okonkwo said the development would either lead to an increase in fuel price or a decrease depending on the market forces of the FX.
He added that the impact on the masses would gradually decrease by introducing Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, into the sector.
“You know how much the government is spending monthly on fuel subsidies payment, but that expenditure to the tune of dollars or Naira will be saved.
“The government has indeed reduced spending on fuel subsidies, though the thing is biting, so we have drafted an alternative in Compressed Natural Gas (CNG)”, he said.
Recall that in a meeting with oil and gas operators in February, Mele Kyari, the group chief executive officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited stated that the country spends N400 billion monthly on fuel subsidies.
