Nigeria expects to save as much as N1 trillion naira ($2.6 billion) a year after it abolished petrol subsidy paid to guarantee cheap gasoline in Africa’s top oil-producing country.
“Already, we have taken off the budgetary provision for subsidy which is about N500 billion,” Petroleum Minister of State Timipre Sylva told reporters Thursday in Abuja.
“It will save us up to N1 trillion and more every year.”
Nigeria relies on oil exports for more than 90 percent of foreign earnings and 50 percent of government revenue.
As oil prices fell to a record with the coronavirus pandemic, the authorities used the opportunity to end the subsidies that have been in place since the 1980s.