Nigeria expects to save as much as one trillion naira ($2.6 billion) a year after it abolished subsidies paid to guarantee cheap gasoline in Africa’s top oil-producing country.

“Already, we have taken off the budgetary provision for subsidy which is about 500 billion naira,” Petroleum Minister of State, Mr Timipre Sylva told reporters Thursday in Abuja. “It will save us up to a trillion naira and more every year.”

Nigeria relies on oil exports for more than 90% of foreign earnings and 50% of government revenue. As oil prices fell to a record with coronavirus pandemic, the authorities used the opportunity to end the subsidies that have been in place since the 1980s.

Bloomberg