Zainab Ahmed, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, on Thursday said the Federal Government was borrowing money to fund petrol subsidies, insisting that the subsidy regime had become totally unsustainable.
The Minister who disclosed this at the public presentation of details of the 2023 budget in Abuja, said: “Fuel subsidy cost was a very high one; We have been funding it from borrowing.”
According to Ahmed, petrol subsidy will “remain up to mid-2023 based on the 18-month extension announced early 2022. In this regard, only N3.36 trillion has been provided for the PMS subsidy.”
President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration had announced plans to end subsidy from July 2022 but changed its position when faced with threats of nationwide protests by labour.
