Alhaji Mele Kyari, Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), has said that contrary to speculations, the immediate past government did not make provisions for petroleum subsidy in the 2023 budget.
He said this on Thursday in Abuja when he met with the Sen. Abdullahi Adamu-led APC National Working Committee (NWC) at the party’s National Secretariat.
“There was a subsidy in 2022, but in 2023, not a single naira was provided for the purpose of financing the subsidy.
“And ultimately, while we held back our fiscal obligations, we still have a net balance of over N2.8 trillion that the federation should have given back to the NNPC.
“For any company, when you have negative N2.8 trillion, there is no company in the whole of Africa that will lend to you, you cannot have receivables.
“The provision of subsidy is there, but absolutely there is no funding for it,” Kyari said, adding that it was only on paper and does not exist.
This, he said, was the true situation of things, adding that the federal government could no longer bear the burden of fuel subsidy.
“If we continue, we will run into defaults and the defaults of NNPC are the defaults of Nigeria.
“Once NNPC goes into defaults and liquidity, it affects every borrowing done by the country, even the sub-nationals. Your lenders will come back to you and say your country can no longer pay,” he said.
The NNPC group chief executive officer added that subsidy constituted a huge amount of money which the country might not be able to survive and pay its debts.
