Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed, on Wednesday, announced that Nigeria has received $800 million from the World Bank to expand its national social programme before petrol subsidies are removed in June.

This year, the government allocated N3.36 trillion for petrol subsidies until mid-2023, but did not make budgetary provisions for the expense after that.

The cost of these subsidies is greater than the spending on healthcare and education combined.

Ahmed explained that the government is looking into cash transfers and mass transit buses for workers to mitigate the impact of subsidy removal on the most vulnerable segment of the population.

She also revealed that the vulnerable list has ten million households, equivalent to 50 million people.

The Finance Minister mentioned that discussions are ongoing with various levels of government, including the incoming administration of President-elect Bola Tinubu, about the subsidy removal.

The World Bank predicted in 2021 that the Covid-19 crisis would lead to more than 11 million Nigerians falling into poverty by 2022, bringing the total number of poor people in the country to over 100 million. The total population of Nigeria is approximately 200 million.

Labour Minister Chris Ngige recently suggested that the new administration of President-elect Tinubu should give pay raises to public sector employees after the fuel subsidy is removed in June. Many Nigerians view cheap subsidised fuel as one of the few benefits they receive from the state, which does not provide other essential services such as electricity and security, despite earning billions of dollars from oil exports every year.

With reports from Reuters