Business

Nigeria to reopen land borders soon – Finance minister

Published

4 years ago

November 25, 2020

Says no issue with federal workers’ salaries

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said the nation’s land borders closed in August 2019 will be reopened soon.

She stated this during an interview with State House correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday.

Already, she said the presidential committee set up on the matter had completed its job and recommended the reopening of the borders.

The committee would soon submit its report to President Muhammadu Buhari, the minister who chairs the committee said, adding that a formal pronouncement would be made on the matter thereafter.

She said, “Mr President has set up a committee that I chair, alongside the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other ministers, including Interior, Customs, Immigration, the security services, to review and advise him on the issue of border closure.

“The committee has just completed its work and we’ll be submitting our report. I’ve signed my copy; I gave everybody to sign between today and tomorrow so that we can submit the report to Mr President.”

she also spoke on the plan to save the economy from recession, saying the administration hoped to use the Economic Sustainability Plan to rescue the economy from its current situation.

She said that the government already anticipated the current recession and had designed the ESP to help fast-track its exit from the economic woe, adding that so far the plan was still very much on track and that the economy was expected to come out of recession in the first quarter of 2021.

She said, “The steps that were taken involved a vigorous implementation of the Economic Sustainability Plan. You will recall that the ESP was designed to be a 12-month plan, to act as a bridge between the ERGP and its successor plan. Also, it was designed specifically to help us quickly exit recession, which we had projected was going to happen.

“So the ESP implementation is really on course; it’s focused and the implementation of the 2020 budget is really on course and very focused. We have been able to release a large volume of capital funding into ministries, departments and agencies, enabling a lot of public works going on simultaneously all over the country.

“So how we will maintain this is to make sure we continue to implement the ESP as it is planned. It will help us exit recession; it will help us reset back on the path of growth and on a road that is sustainable.”

Asked if there were plans to withdraw and rework the 2021 budget proposal which was with the National Assembly in view of the recent announcement of the contraction of the economy, the minister said, “We are not planning to retrieve the budget or reverse the budget beyond the work of appropriation that the National Assembly is currently doing in consultation with us.”

The minister explained the cause of delay in the payment of federal workers’ salaries, saying, “There’s no issue with federal workers’ salary. We have paid salaries for November and we shall pay salaries for December so there’s no issue at all with federal workers’ salary.

“If you hear about any issue, it is for agencies whose budgets funding on the GIFMIS (Government Integrated Financial Management and Information System) was exhausted and we are about to make an adjustment to them.

“When we were doing the 2020 budget, we made estimates of the consequential adjustment that is required as a result of the minimum wage and we had sent the budget before a decision and approval was taken on the consequential adjustment. So, it is anticipated that some agencies might run short and we made a block provision in the service-wide vote of the budget.

“So when we have such a situation, what we simply do is remove funds from the service-wide vote to the agency so that they pay their budget; so there’s no problem of payment of salaries at all.”

Related Topics:Finance minister land borders

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Business

Petrol price: Dangote counters NNPC, says crude sale in naira starts Oct 1

Published

1 hour ago

September 15, 2024

Trends Admin

Petrol price: Dangote counters NNPC, says crude sale in naira starts Oct 1

Dangote refinery has carpeted the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) for reportedly misleading members of the public on the cost of petrol brought from the refinery.

Anthony Chiejina, Group Chief Branding and Communications Office of Dangote, stated this in reaction to an earlier statement by the NNPC that it bought a litre of petrol from the new refinery at N898/litre.

Chief Spokesperson for the NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, was quoted as saying, “We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today. The claim that we purchased it at N760 per liter is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per litre.”

The oil firm moved about 300 trucks to the 650,000 capacity refinery in Lagos, on Saturday, and loading commenced on Sunday.

But in its statement, Dangote Refinery said, “Our attention has been drawn to a statement attributed to NNPCL spokesperson, Mr. Olufemi Soneye, that we sell our PMS at N898 per litre to the NNPCL.

“This statement is both misleading and mischievous, deliberately aimed at undermining the milestone achievement recorded today, September 15, 2024, towards addressing energy insufficiency and insecurity, which has bedeviled the economy in the past 50 years.L

“We urge Nigerians to disregard this malicious statement and await a formal announcement on the pricing, by the Technical Sub-Committee on Naira-based crude sales to local refineries, appointed by His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, which will commence on October 1, 2024, bearing in mind that our current stock of crude was procured in dollars.

“It should also be noted that we sold the products to NNPCL in dollars with a lot of savings against what they are currently importing.

“With this action, there will be petrol in every local government area of the country regardless of their remote nature.

“We assure Nigerians of availability of quality petroleum product and putting an end to the endemic fuel scarcity in the country.”

Business

Dangote sells petrol N898/litre to NNPC, motorists buy N855 at filling stations

Published

3 hours ago

September 15, 2024

Trends Admin

Dangote sells petrol N898/litre to NNPC, motorists buy N855 at filling stations

Hours after commencing loading of petrol from Dangote Refinery in Lagos, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Sunday began dispensing fuel to motorists at its filling stations without too long queues.

This came as the NNPCL disclosed that that it bought fuel from Dangote at N898 per litre.

Spokesperson for the NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye, said, “We successfully loaded PMS (petrol) at the Dangote Refinery today.

“The claim that we purchased it at N760 per litre is incorrect. For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per litre.”

This is contained in a statement issued to Daily Trust on Sunday, clarifying that the price of petrol was higher than previously reported figures.

A correspondent of newstrends.ng however observed that the product was sold on Sunday at N855/litre at all filling stations controlled by the national oil firm in Lagos.

In Idimu, Egbeda and Akowonjo among other areas, the NNPC dispensing outlets were seen selling petrol in an orderly manner.

Some stations had short queues; some had none as the vehicles waiting to buy were within the walled compound.

The NNPCL on Saturday confirmed mobilising 300 trucks for loading at the Dangote Refinery’s 650,000 barrels per day capacity in Lagos.

Loading operations commenced on Sunday, with over 70 trucks loaded by afternoon.

Business

Petrol: Dangote pump price emerges as NNPC trucks begin loading

Published

15 hours ago

September 15, 2024

Trends Admin

Petrol: Dangote pump price emerges as NNPC trucks begin loading

There are indications that petrol may be sold between N857 and N865 per litre at filling stations after the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) starts lifting the product from Dangote Refinery today (Sunday).

The NNPCL, as the sole off-taker of petrol from the refinery, is projected to lift the product at N960/N980 per litre and sell to marketers at N840/N850 to enable Nigerians to get it at between N857 and N865 at the pump at filling stations.

Petrol as of Saturday was sold at N855 per litre at NNPCL retail stations in Lagos and it was the cheapest anyone could buy the product while major marketers sold around N920.

At independent marketers’ outlets, the price was over N1,000.
Elsewhere across the country, petrol sold for more than N1,200 per litre.

Negotiations

Vanguard reports the new arrangement from the NNPCL and Dangote Refinery negotiations, spanning more than one week, would allow Nigerians to get petrol at between N857 and N865 per litre and represents an average under-recovery of about N130 to NNPCL.

President Bola Tinubu, according to a Presidency source, made it clear to the negotiating parties that “the price at which petrol would be sold to Nigerians should not place heavy financial burden on them while dealing with the new reality of the prevailing price”.

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, has expressed optimism that the deal would reduce the pressure on foreign exchange (FX) demands and shore up the value of the Naira – presently, between 30% and 40% of FX demands go into the importation of petrol.

Chief Corporate Communications Officer, NNPC Ltd., Olufemi Soneye, who confirmed the readiness of the company to start lifting petrol today, told Sunday Vanguard, yesterday: “NNPC Ltd has started deploying our trucks and vessels in the Dangote Refinery to lift PMS in preparation for the scheduled lifting date of September 15th, as set by the refinery.

“Our trucks and personnel are already on-site, ready to begin lifting. We expect more trucks, and the deployment will continue throughout the weekend so we can start loading as soon as the refinery begins operations on September 15, 2024.”