Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said that fuel subsidy removal has removed a burden of not less than N15.4 billion monthly from the federal government.
Osinbajo said this in Abuja yesterday at the 2016 presentation of scorecard of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and Agreements Signing ceremony for Joint Venture Cash Calls (JVC) exit.
Represented by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, he said $15 billion would be injected into the sector.
He said: “I am pleased to be the special guest of honour at the agreements signing ceremony for Joint Venture Cash Call exit and the announcement of $15 billion investments to be done in the sector.
“The oil and gas sector remains very critical to the stability and growth of our economy as it accounts for about 90 per cent of earnings. Amongst others, the downstream sector has been deregulated with the elimination of petroleum subsidy.
“This policy has removed from government, a burden of not less than N15.4 billion monthly.”
He said government had taken steps to raise the domestic refining capacity for petroleum products by repairing the existing refineries.
“We have also licensed modular refineries and support the development of private refineries one of which is a 650,000 barrel per day capacity,” he said.
According to him, one of the refineries is nearing completion, and that when completed, “it will restore our pipeline to facilitate crude and products transportation.”
He said that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved new measures aimed at eliminating the burden of JVC and easing future payments in the upstream sector.
Osinbajo commended the World Bank on the global initiative to secure the environment by ending and commercialising gas flares.
“It will boost the discharge of international obligations by Nigeria on climate change and contribute to our national power generation capacity.”
He urged other ministries to come up with score cards of their performances in the last year.