Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, disclosed this during the Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday.
Ahmed explained that the palliatives would be disbursed to 10 million homes, or 50 million vulnerable Nigerians to cushion the effect of the subsidy removal.
She said: “This is a commitment in the Petroleum Industry Act. There’s 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.
“Also, when we were working on the 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and the Appropriation Act, we made that provision to enable us exit fuel subsidy by 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 is 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.