Oil marketers have expressed surprise over the resurfacing of petrol subsidy in June 2020 as disclosed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in its latest operations report.
According to marketers of petrol, the government had since March this year declared that the downstream oil sector had been deregulated and as such there was no need for petrol subsidy.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria and the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria told our correspondent in Abuja that they had not received any subsidy payments from government.
It was reported on Monday that NNPC made an under-recovery of N5.35bn in June.
Under-recovery is the losses incurred by the oil firm due to the difference between the subsidised price at which the corporation sells petrol and the price which it should have received to meet its production cost.
The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs, Division, NNPC, KennieObateru, had explained that the return of under-recovery in June was due to the payment for stock held by marketers at the onset of the removal of subsidy by the Federal Government.
“Since the subsidy removal started with reduction in pump price, marketers have been paid the differential of the PPPRA verified stock they held and it is spread over a period of six months,” he said.
