World Bank fetes Nigerian poor with $800 million palliative

Nigeria finance minister, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has said that the federal government secured an $800 to provide cash transfer to the country’s vulnerable society. This she disclosed at the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday.

The palliatives will be disbursed through cash transfers to about 50 million Nigerians belonging to the most vulnerable category of society.

According to her: “When we were working on the 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Appropriation Act, we made that provision to enable us exit fuel subsidy by June 2023. We’re on course, we’re having different stakeholders’ engagements, we’ve secured some funding from the World Bank, that is the first tranche of palliatives that will enable us give cash transfers to the most vulnerable in our society that have now been registered in a national social register.

Ahmed stated that the government was ready to go beyond cash transfer to cushion the effect that the subsidy removal would have on Nigerians.

“We also have to raise more resources to enable us do more than just the cash transfers and also in our engagements with the various stakeholders, the various kinds of tasks that we have go beyond the requirement of just giving cash transfers. Labour, for example, might be looking for mass transit for its members.

“So there are several things that we’re still planning and working on, some we can start executing quickly, some are more medium-term implementation.”Transitioning government while implementation of fuel subsidy

The finance minister also disclosed that discussions were ongoing between the incumbent government and the incoming administration on modalities for the removal of fuel subsidy by the middle of this year. She stated that there were a lot of discussions going on at different levels, including with members of the transition committee of the incoming government.

The Nigerian government had earlier promised to remove the controversial petrol subsidy before the end of President Buhari’s tenure on May 29, 2023. However, the minister attributed the delay in the subsidy’s removal to the 2023 general election and the forthcoming national population census.

Ahmed stated that subsidy removal was a difficult political and economic decision for the government to take, with the subsidy cost per litre of petrol ranging between ₦350 to ₦400. She maintained that Nigeria spends about ₦250 billion monthly on subsidy.