The postponement of full deregulation of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry by 18 months may cost Nigeria over N4 trillion in subsidy payments on petrol in 2022.
The Country Director, World Bank, Shubham Chaudhuri, disclosed this when he led some executives of the bank on a courtesy visit to the head office of The Punch in Magboro, Ogun State on Thursday.
Chaudhuri said while the World Bank could come up with advice on subsidy removal, its role was certainly not to dictate as it had no ability to do such.
Chaudhuri said, “With economics, really, you are not meant to make a political decision. What you are meant to do is to lay out what are the cons and consequences of different decisions.
“So that is what we are doing, we are just being very clear that this would come with a fiscal cost and the fiscal cost is the number, perhaps N4tn this year.”
He said despite the fact that the price of oil had gone up, the rise in global crude oil prices was not helping Nigeria that much.
