Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the Federal Government has spent a whopping N1.7 trillion to subsidize electricity tariffs in the country; stressing that the burden had become too heavy on the government.
The Minister disclosed this at a Joint Press Conference with the Minister of Power and the Minister of State for Petroleum on Monday.
The media briefing was aimed at addressing concerns over the recent hike in fuel price and electricity tariffs in the country.
Mohammed said the burden of subsidizing electricity tariff had become too heavy on the government to continue to shoulder.
The Federal Government had last week announced that tariff adjustments be made with improved power supply.
The upward review will only affect consumers currently enjoying 12hrs of uninterrupted power supply daily.
Those with less than 12 hrs of uninterrupted supply of electricity will not have their tariffs increased.
On the issue of fuel price hike, the Minister said the government had in the past spent so much subsidizing the commodity but can no longer bear the weight of it.
He, however, appealed to Nigerians to see the adjustments as signs of the current harsh global economic downturn.
