Bayelsa Demands Share of N1trn Saved From Petrol Subsidy Removal

The Bayelsa State Government has asked the federal government for its share of the funds saved from subsidy removal.

The Source magazine reported that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu claimed in a national broadcast on July 31 that over N 1 trillion had been saved within two months of ending the subsidy regime.

“In a little over two months, we have saved over a trillion Naira that would have been squandered on the unproductive fuel subsidy which only benefitted smugglers and fraudsters,” Tinubu said.

Speaking on Monday, Timipre Seipulou, Technical Adviser to Governor Douye Diri stated that the savings from the petrol subsidy have yet to be reflected in the monthly allocations to the state.

The governor’s aide stated this during the transparency briefing for the months of June and July 2023 held in Yenagoa, the state’s capital.

The state government said it has only received N2 billion out of the N5 billion the president promised to share to the 36 state governments and Federal Capital Territory, FCT, as palliatives to cushion the effects of the removal of subsidy.

Seipulou said, “It is worthy of note that with the fuel subsidy removal, our allocation would have increased materially but the figures we have got have not reflected that expectation. If you look at the month of April, our FAAC allocation was about N20 billion, May was N21bn, June was N19bn and July N21bn.

“The question is: what is the effect of the fuel subsidy removal on our funding? If that interpretation is taken, then the derivation factor will be very, very much understated.”

Meanwhile, sources close to the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, the umbrella body for the 36 state governors in the country, hinted to the magazine that the forum will soon make an official demand on the federal government to release states’ share of whatever has been saved from subsidy removal in the last four months to them.