Latest data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) show that the amount spent on subsidising petrol rose to N1.16tn between January and November this year.
The data also revealed that NNPC’s remittances to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee in the 11-month period dropped by N1.78tn.
In its report on funding performance between January and November 2021, the oil firm said it had maintained petrol subsidy since the beginning of this year.
In the report, the NNPC referred to its subsidy spending as under-recovery, as it had repeatedly stated that it had no authorisation by the National Assembly to pay subsidy.
The latest funding performance data showed that while nothing was recorded as under-recovery of PMS/value shortfall in January, the oil company spent N25.374bn, N60.396bn and N61.966bn in February, March and April respectively.
In May, June and July, NNPC recorded under-recoveries/value shortfalls of N126.298bn, N164.337bn and N103.286bn respectively.
The oil firm said the under-recovery/value shortfall stood at N173.132bn, N149.283bn, N163.709bn and N131.4bn in August, September, October and November respectively.
The NNPC spends so much on petrol subsidy because for about four years running it has remained the sole importer of PMS into Nigeria. Other marketers stopped importing the commodity due to their inability to adequately access the United States dollar.
On remittances to FAAC, the funding performance report captured the projected monthly remittance as N122.767bn, but this target was never met for all of the 11 months.
It was also observed that the projected remittance by the company to FAAC for the 11 months combined was put at N2.30tn, but what was actually remitted was N522.203bn.
Hence, the national oil firm could not remit N1.78tn to FAAC to be shared among the three tiers of government in the country during the 11-month period.
The monthly remittances showed that in January, February, March and April, the NNPC remitted N90.86bn, N64.161bn, N41.184bn and nothing respectively to FAAC.
The national oil firm remitted N38.608bn, N47.162bn, N67.28bn, N80.03bn, N67.533bn, N14.85bn and N10.536bn to FAAC in May, June, July, August, September, October and November respectively.