Despite the criticism to the action, the Federal Government shouldn’t reverse its decision to end subsidies on Premium Motor Spirit, also known as gasoline, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative said on Tuesday.
The NEITI also stated that it has started a study to ascertain Nigeria’s actual fuel consumption, emphasizing that the high PMS consumption estimates being published by several government institutions were inaccurate.
However, the head of NEITI suggested that certain measures be taken to mitigate the immediate consequences that subsidy removal had on the extremely defenseless less privileged poor, who were dispersed across the working and non-working classes.
“We just need the impact of this subsidy removal to reflect in the improvement of Nigerians’ social infrastructure and general well-being,” he said. Speaking about the validation workshop, Orji said that the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative’s requirement 7.4 under its 2019 standard (now requirement 1.5 under its 2023 standard) required all participating nations, including Nigeria, to document their analysis of the effects and results of the EITI implementation.