Nigeria pays lowest petrol, electricity price in West Africa – Buhari govt

The Federal government on Monday said Nigerians paid the lowest price for electricity and fuel in West Africa.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, in a statement.

He noted that with the price of crude inching up, the price of petrol locally was also bound
to increase, hence the latest price of N162 per litre.

“If, perchance, the price of crude drops again, the price of petrol will also drop, and the benefits will also be passed on to the consumers. The angry reactions that have greeted the latest prices of Premium
Motor Spirit (PMS) are therefore unnecessary and totally mischievous.

“The government can no longer afford fuel subsidy, as revenues and foreign exchange earnings have fallen by almost 60%, due
to the downturn in the fortunes of the oil sector. Yet, the government has had to sustain expenditures, especially on salaries and capital
projects. Even though we have acted to mitigate the effect of the economic slowdown by adopting an Economic Sustainability Plan, we have also had to take some difficult decisions to stop unsustainable
practices that were weighing the economy down.”

Mohammed stressed that the cost of fuel subsidy is too high and unsustainable.

He said from 2006 to 2019, fuel subsidy gulped N10.413trillion.

The Buhari administration said in spite of the recent increase, the price of fuel and electricity in Nigeria “remain the lowest in the West/Central African sub-regions.”

He further gave a comparative analysis of
petrol prices in the sub-regions in Naira equivalent per litre.

“The truth of the matter is that due to the problems with the largely-privatized electricity industry, the government has been
supporting the industry. To keep the industry going, the government has so far spent almost N1.7trillion, especially by way of
supplementing tariffs shortfalls. The government does not have theresources to continue along this path. To borrow just to subsidize generation and distribution, which are both privatized, will be grossly irresponsible.

“But in order to protect the large majority of Nigerians who cannot afford to pay cost-reflective tariffs from increases, the industry
regulator, NERC, has approved that tariff adjustments had to be made but only on the basis of guaranteed improvement in service. Under this new arrangement, only customers with guaranteed minimum of 12 hours of
electricity can have their tariffs adjusted. Those who get less than 12 hours supply will experience no increase. This is the largest group of customers”, he said.