Federal Government says the sum of $800 million has been secured from the World Bank and ready for disbursement as part of palliatives to cushion effects of the plan to remove subsidy on the petroleum products in two months time.
The Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, said this on Wednesday after the Federal Executive Council meeting.
Her statement read,
There is a provision that says that 18 months after the effectiveness of the PIA that all petroleum products must be deregulated, that 18 months takes us to June 2023.
“We’re on course, we’re having different stakeholder 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. Today that register has a list of 10 million households. 10 million households are equivalent to about 50 million Nigerians.
“But 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.”
