Nigeria expends $36.3 billion on fuel importation – CBN
NEWS DIGEST – The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has disclosed that the sum of $36.371billion was expended on the importation of petroleum products from 2013 to 2017.
The Director in charge of Research of the bank, Mr Ganiyu Amao disclosed this yesterday while testifying before the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on Refineries Turn Around Maintenance, (TAM)
Also, the Governor of the Apex bank, Mr Godwin Emefiele, decried the huge expenditure has he claimed its negative effects on the nation’s external reserve and induced the depreciation of the naira.
He said: “Data from the CBN show that from 2013 to 2017, a total of foreign exchange committed to imports in the country stood at $119.409billion, while the total foreign exchange committed to imports in the oil sector stood at $36.371billion, representing 13.5percent of all imports made by the country.
“It greatly exerts serious pressure on our external reserve and depreciates the value of our local currency.”
According to the Governor, the rate of domestic consumption has rose from 4.5 million metric tons to 23.9million metric tons in 2013, however dropped to 2.6m metric tons in 2016.
He however revealed CBN’s involvement in policies that compelled International Oil companies, IOCs, in order to refine some of the crude for domestic consumption.
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In lieu of the disclosed figures. the Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Dattin Muhammad (APC, Kaduna) expressed displeasure that NNPC which was central to the probe was not forthcoming with vital documents.
Meanwhile, the Committee gave the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, 24 hours to provide relevant information relating to installed capacity, volume of crude supply and output, as well as the Turn Around Maintenance of the four refineries.
He alleged that some stakeholders were bent on frustrating the investigation by refusing to avail the committee necessary information.
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