Wale Edun, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, said that the country had saved $20 billion by eliminating the petrol subsidy and implementing market-based foreign exchange pricing.
Edun made the remark during an event in Abuja commemorating Esther Walso-Jack’s first 100 days in office as Head of the Federation’s Civil Service.
“An amount of five percent of GDP is what those two subsidies were costing,” Edun stated.
“When there was a subsidy on PMS and on foreign exchange, they collectively cost five percent of GDP. Assuming GDP was $400 billion on average, five percent of that is $20 billion—funds that could now go into infrastructure, health, social services, and education.”
He also explained that the savings are being redirected into developmental projects: “The real change is that no one can wake up and target cheap funding or forex from the central bank to enrich themselves without adding value. Similarly, profiteering from the inefficient petrol subsidy regime is no longer possible.”
On May 29, President Bola Tinubu officially ended the petroleum subsidy regime.
On August 19, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited revealed that the federal government owed ₦7.8 trillion in underrecovery, contradicting previous assertions of subsidy reinstatement.
