President Muhammadu Buhari has said that petrol subsidy has been a recurring and most controversial public policy issue in the country since the early eighties.
The president, however, affirmed that it’s current fiscal impact has clearly shown that the is no longer sustainable.
Buhari said this on Friday during the presentation of the proposed 2023 budget amounting to N20.51trn to the national assembly, in Abuja.
“As we seek to grow our government revenues, we must also focus on the efficiency of utilisation of our limited resources. Critical steps we are taking include immediate implementation of additional measures towards reducing the cost of governance and the discontinuation of fuel subsidy in 2023 as announced earlier,” he said.
Buhari said discontinuing the policy was necessary for the country to manage its limited resources.
He, however, noted that there would be alternative provisions to curb the effects of the petrol subsidy removal.
“We are however mindful of the fact that reducing government spending too drastically can be socially destabilising, and so will continue to implement programmes to support the more vulnerable segments of society,” he said.
“Petrol subsidy has been a recurring and controversial public policy issue in our country since the early eighties. However, its current fiscal impact has clearly shown that the policy is unsustainable.
“As a country, we must now confront this issue taking cognisance of the need to provide safety nets to cushion the attendant effects on some segments of society.
Buhari revealed that,government targets N1.92tn in oil revenues in 2023.
Explaining further, he said the government would spend N20.15tn for the 2023 fiscal year.
N6.31tn and N2.42tn of that amount will go to debt servicing and government owned enterprises, respectively.
“The rest include statutory transfers,N744.11bn, non-debt recurrent costs pegged at N8.27tn, personnel cost at N4.99tn.
“Others include,Pensions, Gratuities and Retirees’ Benefits at N854.8bn while overheads was pegged at N1.11tn.
“Capital Expenditure of N5.35tn which includes the capital component of Statutory Transfers and sinking fund of N247.73bn to retire certain maturing bonds,” he said
He warned the lawmakers against budget padding and interference of some committees in the budget approval process.
“I would like to implore the leadership of the National Assembly to ensure that the budget I lay here today,which includes those of the GOEs,be returned to the Presidency when passed.
“The current practice where some committees of the National Assembly purport to pass budgets for GOEs, which are at variance with the budgets sanctioned by me,and communicate such directly to the MDAs is against the rules and needs to stop,”Buhari warned