Nigeria Governors Forum committee on Petrol on Wednesday recommended that petrol should be sold for N403 per litre.
This was revealed as the committee submitted its report on petrol during the NGF meeting on Wednesday.
It also recommended that the removal of subsidies should be immediate to save the nation’s economy.
The chairman of the committee and Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, while presenting the report on the development, said the current subsidy regime was unsustainable because smugglers and illegal markets in neighbouring African countries were the beneficiaries.
According to him, Nigeria is lagging behind among its colleagues in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries due to the subsidies that are yet to be removed.
The Kaduna governor said, “Between N70bn and N210bn is estimated to be spent every month to keep gasoline price at N162 per litre, this is below the cost price and the remittance to the federation account will shrink to less than N50bn per month or even zero if threats persist.
“We are already at zero. I understand for tomorrow, so this scenario has occurred.
“Why are we keeping the price at N162? We are keeping the price because the Federal Government and trade unions met and agreed to the suspension of some industrial action months back.
“Even though we all supported deregulation of petroleum products prices last year, this agreement was suspended by the Federal Government because of a threat of industrial action by unions. This is the root of the problem and now we are back to losing between N70bn to N210bn per month.”
He also lamented that the NNPC has not been remitting the N120bn per month expected to remit to the federation account as stated in the 2021 budget.
The chairman of the committee also explained that only about 12 states consumed two-thirds of the petrol, which was heavily subsidised.
The committee recommended N408.5 litre as the appropriate price in the circumstance but that with concessions to labour unions, N380 per litre could be the minimum.
“The committee recommends PMS pump price increment from the current N162per litre to N408.5 per litre (negotiations with organized labour unions). N380per litre (settlement with organized labour)”, El-Rufai said.
Meanwhile, Ogun State governor Dapo Abiodun and other colleagues said the 93 million litres which the NNPC claimed was consumed in Nigeria daily was unacceptable.