POLITICS

Tinubu’s govt spending more on petrol subsidy than ever — El-Rufai

April 16, 2024

Former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has alleged that President Bola Tinubu-led government is still subsidizing petrol despite the high cost of the commodity.

Recall that during his inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, President announced an end to petrol subsidy.

The presidency has, on several occasions, insisted that the government was not spending a dime on petrol subsidy.

But addressing journalists in Maiduguri on Monday, El-Rufai alleged that fuel subsidy is back, adding that the Tinubu administration is paying more than past governments.

He said that the packages of support that would reduce the impact of fuel subsidy were not effective, hence reversal of the policy.

“Fuel subsidy is another policy that has been implemented by the president, it’s the right policy. I always supported withdrawing fuel subsidy,” El-Rufai said.

“But, in the course of implementation as you can see the government has now realized that the subsidy has to be back because right now, we are paying a lot of money for subsidy even more than before.

“This is because the impact has been seen and the packages of support that would reduce the impact have not been so effective in reducing the impact, so the federal government is back now subsidizing petrol.

“If they want to know whether we are subsidizing or not, they should compare the price of petrol and diesel because petrol should be more expensive than diesel but diesel is priced above a thousand naira while petrol is at N600 per liter.

“So, we are still subsidizing petrol because the government has realised that they way it implemented the fuel subsidy initially required some adjustments. That’s what I keep saying about policy and policy pragmatism,” he said.